1 


AGNOSTICISM 


AND 


OTHER   ESSAYS 


EDGAR   FAWCETT 


WITH    A     PROLOGUE     BY 
ROBERT    G.    INGERSOLL 


NEW  YORK,  CHICAGO,  AND  SAN  FRANCISCO 
BELFORD,  CLARKE    AND    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 
LONDON  :   H.  J.  DKANE,  LOVELL'S  COURT,  PATERNOSTER  RUIV 


COPYRIGHT,  1889, 

BY 

BKLFORD,  CLAKKE  &  Co. 


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'&&•'  •       '-*-•  -<£&4^e***<  . 

CONTENTS. 


PAGS 
ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL'S  PROLOGUE,    ...      7 

I.   Edgar  Fawcett, 7 

II.  Science, 9 

III.  Morality 14 

IV.  Spirituality, 18 

V.  Reverence,     ......          20 

VI.  Existence  of  God, 21 

AGNOSTICISM,    .......         25 

THE  ARROGANCE  OF  OPTIMISM,  .        .        .        .65 

THE  BROWNING  CRAZE 106 

THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  OUIDA,          ....  148 
SHOULD  CRITICS  BE  GENTLEMEN  ?  .        .        .       194 


/^e^       Ct^     /*( 

,;i        /*  • 


"  '  Heaven  help  us!'  said  the  old  religion;  the  new 
one,  from  its  very  lack  of  that  faith,  will  teach  us  all 
the  more  to  help  one  another." 

— GEORGE  ELIOT'S  LETTERS. 


ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL'S  PRO 
LOGUE. 


I. 

EDGAR    FAWCETT. 

EDGAR  FAWCETT — a  great  poet,  a  meta 
physician  and  logician — has  been  for  years 
engaged  in  exploring  that  strange  world 
wherein  are  supposed  to  be  the  springs  of 
human  action.  He  has  sought  for  some 
thing  back  of  motives,  reasons,  fancies,  pas 
sions,  prejudices,  and  the  countless  tides 
and  tendencies  that  constitute  the  life  of 
man. 

He  has  found  some  of  the  limitations  of 
mind,  and  knows  that  beginning  at  that 
luminous  centre  called  consciousness,  a  few 
short  steps  bring  us  to  the  prison  wall 
where  vision  fails  and  all  light  dies.  Be 
yond  this  wall  the  eternal  darkness  broods. 
This  gloom  is  "  the  other  world  "  of  the 

7 


8  Agnosticism. 

super-naturalist.  With  him,  real  vision  be 
gins  where  the  sight  fails.  He  reverses 
the  order  of  nature.  Facts  become  illu 
sions,  and  illusions  the  only  realities.  He 
believes  that  the  cause  of  the  image,  the 
reality,  is  behind  the  mirror. 

A  few  centuries  ago  the  priests  said  to 
their  followers  :  The  other  world  is  above 
you  ;  it  is  just  beyond  where  you  see.  Af 
terwards  the  astronomer  with  his  telescope 
looked,  and  asked  the  priests  :  Where  is 
the  world  of  which  you  speak  ?  And  the 
priests  replied  :  It  has  receded — it  is  just 
beyond  where  you  see. 

As  long  as  there  is  "a  beyond"  there  is 
room  for  the  priests'  world.  Theology  is 
the  geography  of  this  beyond. 

Between  the  Christian  and  the  Agnostic 
there  is  the  difference  of  assertion  and 
question — between  "  There  is  a  God  "  and 
"Is  there  a  God?"  The  Agnostic  has  the 
arrogance  to  admit  his  ignorance,  while 
the  Christian  from  the  depths  of  humility 
impudently  insists  that  he  knows. 

Mr.  Fawcett  has  shown  that  at  the  root 
of  religion  lies  the  coiled  serpent  of  fear, 
and  that  ceremony,  prayer,  and  worship 
are  ways  and  means  to  gain  the  assistance 
or  soften  the  heart  of  a  supposed  deity. 


Robert  G.  Inger soil's  Prologue.         9 

He  also  shows  that  as  man  advances  in 
knowledge  he  loses  confidence  in  the 
watchfulness  of  Providence  and  in  the  effi 
cacy  of  prayer. 

II. 

SCIENCE. 

THE  savage  is  certain  of  those  things 
that  cannot  be  known.  He  is  acquainted 
with  origin  and  destiny,  and  knows  every 
thing  except  that  which  is  useful.  The 
civilized  man,  having  outgrown  the  igno 
rance,  the  arrogance,  and  the  provincialism 
of  savagery,  abandons  the  vain  search  for 
final  causes,  for  the  nature  and  origin  of 
things. 

In  nearly  every  department  of  science 
man  is  allowed  to  investigate,  and  the  dis 
covery  of  a  new  fact  is  welcomed,  unless  it 
threatens  some  creed. 

Of  course  there  can  be  no  advance  in 
a  religion  established  by  infinite  wisdom. 
The  only  progress  possible  is  in  the  com 
prehension  of  this  religion. 

For  many  generations  what  is  known 
under  a  vast  number  of  disguises  and  be 
hind  many  masks  as  the  Christian  relig 
ion  has  been  propagated  and  preserved  by 


IO  Agnosticism. 

the  sword  and  bayonet — that  is  to  say,  by 
force.  The  credulity  of  man  has  been 
bribed  and  his  reason  punished.  Those 
who  believed  without  the  slightest  ques 
tion,  and  whose  faith  held  evidence  in 
contempt,  were  saints;  those  who  inves 
tigated  were  dangerous,  and  those  who 
denied  were  destroyed. 

Every  attack  upon  this  religion  has  been 
made  in  the  shadow  of  human  and  divine 
hatred — in  defiance  of  earth  and  heaven. 
At  one  time  Christendom  was  beneath  the 
ignorant  feet  of  one  man,  and  those  who 
denied  his  infallibility  were  heretics  and 
atheists.  At  last  a  protest  was  uttered. 
The  right  of  conscience  was  proclaimed,  to 
the  extent  of  making  a  choice  between  the 
infallible  man  and  the  infallible  book. 
Those  who  rejected  the  man  and  accepted 
the  book  became  in  their  turn  as  merci 
less,  as  tyrannical  and  heartless,  as  the  fol 
lowers  of  the  infallible  man.  The  Protes 
tants  insisted  that  an  infinitely  wise  and 
good  God  would  not  allow  criminals  and 
wretches  to  act  as  his  infallible  agents. 

Afterwards  a  few  protested  against  the 
infallibility  of  the  book,  using  the  same 
arguments  against  the  book  that  had  for 
merly  been  used  against  the  pope.  They 


Robert  G.  Inger  soil's  Prologue.        1 1 

said  that  an  infinitely  wise  and  good  God 
could  not  be  the  author  of  a  cruel  and 
ignorant  book.  But  those  who  protested 
against  the  book  fell  into  substantially  the 
same  error  that  had  been  fallen  into  by 
those  who  had  protested  against  the  man. 
While  they  denounced  the  book,  and  in 
sisted  that  an  infinitely  wise  and  good  being 
could  not  have  been  its  author,  they  took 
the  ground  that  an  infinitely  wise  and 
good  being  was  the  creator  and  governor 
of  the  world. 

Then  was  used  against  them  the  same 
argument  that  had  been  used  by  the  Prot 
estants  against  the  pope  and  by  the  Deists 
against  the  Protestants.  Attention  was 
called  to  the  fact  that  Nature  is  as  cruel 
as  any  pope  or  any  book — that  it  is  just  as 
easy  to  account  for  the  destruction  of  the 
Canaanites  consistently  with  the  goodness 
of  Jehovah  as  to  account  for  pestilence, 
earthquake,  and  flood  consistently  with  the 
goodness  of  the  God  of  Nature. 

The  Protestant  and  Deist  both  used  ar 
guments  against  the  Catholic  that  could  in 
turn  be  used  with  equal  force  against  them 
selves.  So  that  there  is  no  question  among 
intelligent  people  as  to  the  infallibility  of 
the  pope,  as  to  the  inspiration  of  the 


1 2  Agnosticism. 

book,  or  as  to  the  existence  of  the  Chris 
tian's  God — for  the  conclusion  has  been 
reached  that  the  human  mind  is  incapable 
of  deciding  as  to  the  origin  and  destiny 
of  the  universe. 

For  many  generations  the  mind  of  man 
has  been  travelling  in  a  circle.  It  accepted 
without  question  the  dogma  of  a  First 
Cause — of  the  existence  of  a  Creator — of 
an  Infinite  Mind  back  of  matter,  and  sought 
in  many  ways  to  define  its  ignorance  in  this 
behalf.  The  most  sincere  worshippers  have 
declared  that  this  Being  is  incomprehen 
sible, — that  he  is  "without  body,  parts,  or 
passions" — that  he  is  infinitely  beyond 
their  grasp, — and  at  the  same  time  have 
insisted  that  it  was  necessary  for  man  not 
only  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  this 
Being,  but  to  love  him  with  all  his  heart. 

Christianity  having  always  been  in  part 
nership  with  the  State, — having  controlled 
kings  and  nobles,  judges  and  legislators — 
having  been  in  partnership  with  armies 
and  with  every  form  of  organized  de 
struction, — it  was  dangerous  to  discuss  the 
foundation  of  its  authority.  To  speak 
lightly  of  any  dogma  was  a  crime  punish 
able  by  death.  Every  absurdity  has  been 
bastioned  and  barricaded  by  the  power  of 


Robert  G.  Inger soli's  Prologue.        13 

the  State.  It_has  been  protected  by  fist, 
by  club,  by  sword  and  cannon. 
"  For  many  years  Christianity  succeeded 
in  substantially  closing  the  mouths  of  its 
enemies,  and  lived  and  flourished  only 
where  investigation  and  discussion  were 
prevented  by  hypocrisy  and  bigotry.  The 
Church  still  talks  about  "  evidence,"  about 
"  reason,"  about  "  freedom  of  conscience  " 
and  the  "liberty  of  speech,"  and  yet 
denounces  those  who  ask  for  evidence,  who 
appeal  to  reason,  and  who  honestly  express 
their  thoughts. 

To-day  we  know  that  the  miracles  of 
Christianity  are  as  puerile  and  false  as  those 
ascribed  to  the  medicine-men  of  Central 
Africa  or  the  Fiji  Islanders,  and  that  the 
"sacred  scriptures"  have  the  same  claim 
to  inspiration  that  the  Koran  has  or  the 
Book  of  Mormon — no  less,  no  more.  These 
questions  have  been  settled  and  laid  aside 
by  free  and  intelligent  people.  They  have 
ceased  to  excite  interest;  and  the  man  who 
now  really  believes  in  the  truth  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  regarded  with  a  smile — looked 
upon  as  an  aged  child — still  satisfied  with 
the  lullabys  and  toys  of  the  cradle. 


14  Agnosticism. 


III. 

MORALITY. 

IT  is  contended  that  without  religion — 
that  is  to  say,  without  Christianity — all 
ideas  of  morality  must  of  necessity  perish, 
and  that  spirituality  and  reverence  will  be 
lost. 

What  is  morality  ? 

Is  it  to  obey  without  question,  or  is  it  to 
act  in  accordance  with  perceived  obliga 
tion  ?  Is  it  something  witli  which  intel 
ligence  has  nothing  to  do?  Must  the 
ignorant  child  carry  out  the  command  of 
the  wise  father — the  rude  peasant  rush  to 
.  death  at  the  request  of  the  prince? 

Is  it  impossible  for  morality  to  exist  where 
the  brain  and  heart  are  in  partnership? 
Is  there  no  foundation  for  morality  ex 
cept  punishment  threatened  or  reward 
promised  by  a  superior  to  an  inferior  ?  If 
this  be  true,  how  can  the  superior  be 
virtuous  ?  Cannot  the  reward  and  the 
threat  be  in  the  nature  of  things  ?  Can 
they  not  rest  in  consequences  perceived  by 
the  intellect?  How  can  the  existence  or 
non-existence  of  a  deity  change  my  obli 
gation  to  keep  my  hands  out  of  the  fire  ? 


Robert  G.  Ingersoll  s  Prologue.         \  5 

The  results  of  all  actions  are  equally  cer 
tain,  but  not  equally  known,  not  equally 
perceived.  If  all  men  knew  with  perfect  cer 
tainty  that  to  steal  from  another  was  to  rob 
themselves,  larceny  would  cease.  It  can 
not  be  said  too  often  that  actions  are  good 
or  bad  in  the  light  of  consequences,  and 
that  a  clear  perception  of  consequences 
would  control  actions.  That  which  in 
creases  the  sum  of  human  happiness  is 
moral  ;  that  which  diminishes  the  sum 
of  human  happiness  is  immoral.  Blind, 
unreasoning  obedience  is  the  enemy  of 
morality.  Slavery  is  not  the  friend  of 
virtue.  Actions  are  neither  right  nor 
wrong  by  virtue  of  what  men  or  gods  can 
say  ;  the  right  or  wrong  lives  in  results — 
in  the  nature  of  things,  growing  out  of 
relations  violated  or  caused. 

Accountability  lives  in  the  nature  of  con 
sequences — in  their  absolute  certainty — in 
the  fact  that  they  cannot  be  placated,  avoid 
ed,  or  bribed. 

The  relations  of  human  life  are  too 
complicated  to  be  accurately  and  clearly 
understood,  and,  as  a  consequence,  rules 
of  action  vary  from  age  to  age.  The  ideas 
of  right  and  wrong  change  with  the  ex 
perience  of  the  race,  and  this  change  is 


1 6  Agnosticism . 

wrought  by  the  gradual  ascertaining  of 
consequences — of  results.  For  this  reason 
the  religion  of  one  age  fails  to  meet  the 
standard  of  another,  precisely  as  the  laws 
that  satisfied  our  ancestors  are  repealed  by 
us  ;  so  that,  in  spite  of  all  efforts,  religion 
itself  is  subject  to  gradual  and  perpetual 
change. 

The  miraculous  is  no  longer  the  basis  of 
morals.  Man  is  a  sentient  being — he  suf 
fers  and  enjoys.  In  order  to  be  happy  he 
must  preserve  the  conditions  of  well-being 
• — must  live  in  accordance  with  certain 
facts  by  which  he  is  surrounded.  If  he 
violates  these  conditions  the  result  is  un- 
happiness,  failure,  disease,  misery. 

Man  must  have  food,  roof,  raiment,  fire 
side,  friends— that  is  to  say,  prosperity;  and 
this  he  must  earn — this  he  must  deserve. 
He  is  no  longer  satisfied  with  being  a 
slave,  even  of  the  Infinite.  He  wishes  to 
perceive  for  himself,  to  understand,  to  in 
vestigate,  to  experiment ;  and  he  has  at 
last  the  courage  to  bear  the  consequences 
that  he  brings  upon  himself.  He  has  also 
found  that  those  who  are  the  most  religious 
are  not  always  the  kindest,  and  that  those 
who  have  been  and  are  the  worshippers 
of  God  enslave  their  fellow-men.  Ie  has 


Robert  G.  Ingcr  soil's  Prologue.        17 

found  that  there  is  no  necessary  connection 
between  religion  and  morality. 

Morality  needs  no  supernatural  assistance 
— -"needs  neither  miracle  nor  pretence.  It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  awe,  reverence, 
credulity,  or  blind,  unreasoning  faith. 
Morality  is  the  highway  perceived  by  the 
soul,  the  direct  road,  leading  to  success, 
honor,  and  happiness. 

The  best  thing  to  do  under  the  circum 
stances  is  moral. 

The  highest  possible  standard  is  human. 
We  put  ourselves  in  the  places  of  others. 
We  are  made  happy  by  the  kindness  of 
others,  and  we  feel  that  a  fair  exchange  of 
good  actions  is  the  wisest  and  best  com 
merce.  We  know  that  others  can  make  us 
miserable  by  acts  of  hatred  and  injustice, 
and  we  shrink  from  inflicting  the  pain  upon 
others  that  we  have  felt  ourselves  :  this  is 
the  foundation  of  conscience. 

If  man  could  not  suffer,  the  words  right 
and  wrong  could  never  have  been  spoken. 

The  agnostic,  the  infidel,  clearly  per 
ceives  the  true  basis  of  morals,  and,  so 
perceiving,  he  knows  that  the  religious 
man.  the  superstitious  man,  caring  more 
for  God  than  for  his  fellows,  will  sacrifice  his 
fellows,  either  at  the  supposed  command  of 


1 8  Agnosticism. 

his  God,  or  to  win  his  approbation.  He 
also  knows  that  the  religionist  has  no  basis 
for  morals  except  these  supposed  com 
mands.  The  basis  of  morality  with  him 
lies  not  in  the  nature  of  things,  but  in  the 
caprice  of  some  deity.  He  seems  to  think 
that,  had  it  not  been  for  the  Ten  Command 
ments,  larceny  and  murder  might  have 
been  virtues. 

IV. 

SPIRITUALITY. 

WHAT  is  it  to  be  spiritual  ? 

Is  this  fine  quality  of  the  mind  destroyed 
by  the  development  of  the  brain  ?  As  the 
domain  wrested  by  science  from  ignorance 
increases — as  island  after  island  and  con 
tinent  after  continent  are  discovered — as 
star  after  star  and  constellation  after  con 
stellation  in  the  intellectual  world  burst 
upon  the  midnight  of  ignorance,  does  the 
spirituality  of  the  mind  grow  less  and 
less  ?  Like  morality,  is  it  only  found  in  the 
company  of  ignorance  and  superstition  ?  Is 
the  spiritual  man  honest,  kind,  candid  ? — or 
dishonest,  cruel,  and  hypocritical  ?  Does 
he  say  what  he  thinks  ?  Is  he  guided  by 
reason  ?  Is  he  the  friend  of  the  right  ? — 


Robert  G.  I  tiger  soil's  Prologue.        19 

the  champion  of  the  truth  ?  Must  this 
splendid  quality  called  spirituality  be  re 
tained  through  the  loss  of  candor  ?  Can 
we  not  truthfully  say  that  absolute  candor 
is  the  beginning  of  wisdom  ? 

To  recognize  the  finer  harmonies  of  con 
duct — to  live  to  the  ideal — to  separate  the 
incidental,  the  evanescent,  from  the  per 
petual — to  be  enchanted  with  the  perfect 
melody  of  truth — open  to  the  influences  of 
the  artistic,  the  beautiful,  the  heroic — to 
shed  kindness  as  the  sun  sheds  light — to 
recognize  the  good  in  others,  and  to  include 
the  world  in  the  idea  of  self — this  is  to  be 
spiritual. 

There  is  nothing  spiritual  in  the  worship 
of  the  unknown  and  unknowable,  in  the 
self-denial  of  a  slave  at  the  command  of  a 
master  whom  he  fears.  Fastings,  prayings, 
mutilations,  kneelings,  and  mortifications 
are  either  the  results  of,  or  result  in,  in 
sanity.  This  is  the  spirituality  of  Bedlam, 
and  is  of  no  kindred  with  the  soul  that 
finds  its  greatest  joy  in  the  discharge  of 
obligation  perceived. 


2O  Agnosticism. 

V. 

REVERENCE. 

WHAT  is  reverence  ? 

It  is  the  feeling  produced  when  we  stand 
in  the  presence  of  our  ideal,  or  of  that 
which  most  nearly  approaches  it — that 
which  is  produced  by  what  we  consider  the 
highest  degree  of  excellence. 

The  highest  is  reverenced,  praised,  and 
admired  without  qualification.  Each  man 
reverences  according  to  his  nature,  his  ex 
perience,  his  intellectual  development.  He 
may  reverence  Nero  or  Marcus  Aurelius, 
Jehovah  or  Buddha,  the  author  of  Leviti 
cus  or  Shakespeare.  Thousands  of  men 
reverence  John  Calvin,  Torquemada,  and 
the  Puritan  fathers  ;  and  some  have  greater 
respect  for  Jonathan  Edwards  than  for 
Captain  Kidd. 

A  vast  number  of  people  have  great 
reverence  for  anything  that  is  covered  by 
mould,  or  moss,  or  mildew.  They  bow  low 
before  rot  and  rust,  and  adore  the  worth 
less  things  that  have  been  saved  by  the 
negligence  of  oblivion.  They  are  enchanted 
with  the  dull  and  fading  daubs  of  the  old 
masters,  and  hold  in  contempt  those  mir- 


Robert  G.  Inger  soil's  Prologue,        21 

acles  of  art,  the  paintings  of  to-day.  They 
worship  the  ancient,  the  shadowy,  the 
mysterious,  the  wonderful.  They  doubt 
the  value  of  anything  that  they  understand. 

The  creed  of  Christendom  is  the  enemy 
of  morality.  It  teaches  that  the  innocent 
can  justly  suffer  for  the  guilty,  that  conse 
quences  can  be  avoided  by  repentance,  and 
that  in  the  world  of  mind  the  great  fact 
known  as  cause  and  effect  does  not  apply. 

It  is  the  enemy  of  spirituality,  because  it 
teaches  that  credulity  is  of  more  value 
than  conduct,  and  because  it  pours  con 
tempt  upon  human  love  by  raising  far 
above  it  the  adoration  of  a  phantom. 

It  is  the  enemy  of  reverence.  It  makes 
ignorance  the  foundation  of  virtue.  It  be 
littles  the  useful,  and  cheapens  the  noblest 
of  the  virtues.  It  teaches  man  to  live  on 
mental  alms,  and  glorifies  the  intellectual 
pauper.  It  holds  candor  in  contempt,  and 
is  the  malignant  foe  of  mental  manhood. 

VI. 

EXISTENCE    OF    GOD. 

MR.  FAWCETT  has  shown  conclusively 
that  it  is  no  easier  to  establish  the  existence 
of  an  infinitely  wise  and  good  being  by  the 


\ 


22  Agnosticism. 

existence  of  what  we  call  "good"  than  to 
establish  the  existence  of  an  infinitely  bad 
being  by  what  we  call  "  bad." 

Nothing  can  be  surer  than  that  the  his 
tory  of  this  world  furnishes  no  foundation 
on  which  to  base  an  inference  that  it  has 
been  governed  by  infinite  wisdom  and 
goodness.  So  terrible  has  been  the  condi 
tion  of  man  that  religionists  in  all  ages  have 
endeavored  to  excuse  God  by  accounting 
for  the  evils  of  the  world  by  the  wickedness 
of  men.  And  the  Fathers  of  the  Christian 
Church  were  forced  to  take  the  ground 
that  this  world  had  been  filled  with  briers 
and  thorns,  with  deadly  serpents  and  with 
poisonous  weeds,  with  disease  and  crime 
and  earthquake  and  pestilence  and  storm, 
by  the  curse  of  God. 

The  probability  is  that  no  God  has 
cursed,  and  that  no  God  will  bless,  this 
earth.  Man  suffers  and  enjoys  according 
to  conditions.  The  sunshines  without  love, 
and  the  lightning  blasts  without  hate. 
4rMan  is  the  Providence  of  man. 

Nature  gives  to  our  eyes  all  they  can  see, 
to  our  ears  all  they  can  hear,  and  to  the 
mind  what  it  can  comprehend.  The  human 
race  reaps  the  fruit  of  every  victory  won  on 
the  fields  of  intellectual  or  physical  conflict. 


Robert  G.  Ingcr soil's  Prologue.        23 

We  have  no  right  to  expect  something  for 
nothing.  Man  will  reap  no  harvest  the 
seeds  of  which  he  has  not  sowrij 

The  race  must  be  guided  by  intelligence, 
must  be  free  to  investigate,  and  must  have    v   \ 
the  courage  and   the  candor  not  only  to     V 
state  what  is   known,  but  to  cheerfully  ad 
mit  the  limitations  of  the  mind. 

No  intelligent,  honest  man  can  read  what 
Mr.  Fawcett  has  written  and  then  say  that 
he  knows  the  origin  and  destiny  of  things — 
that  he  knows  whether  an  Infinite  Being 
exists  or  not,  that  he  knows  whether  the  soul 
of  man  is  or  is  not  immortal. 

In  the  land  of  ,  the  geography  of 

which  is  not  certainly  known,  there  was  for 
many  years  a  great  dispute  among  the  in 
habitants  as  to  which  road  led  to  the  City 
of  Miragia,  the  capital  of  their  country,  and 
known  to  be  the  most  delightful  city  on  the 
earth.  For  fifty  generations  the  discussion 
as  to  which  road  led  to  the  city  had  been 
carried  on  with  the  greatest  bitterness,  un 
til  finally  the  people  were  divided  into  a 
great  number  of  parties,  each  party  claim 
ing  that  the  road  leading  to  the  city  had 
been  miraculously  made  known  to  the 
founder  of  that  particular  sect.  The  various 
parties  spent  most  of  their  time  putting  up 


24  Agnosticism. 

guide-boards  on  these  roads  and  tearing 
down  the  guide-boards  of  others.  Hun 
dreds  of  thousands  had  been  killed,  prisons 
were  filled,  and  the  fields  had  been  ravaged 
by  the  hosts  of  war. 

One  day,  a  wise  man,  a  patriot,  wishing 
to  bring  peace  to  his  country,  met  the 
leaders  of  the  various  sects  and  asked  them 
whether  it  was  absolutely  certain  that  the 
City  of  Miragia  existed.  He  called  their 
attention  to  the  facts  that  no  resident  of 
that  city  had  ever  visited  them  and  that 
none  of  their  fellow-men  who  had  started 
for  the  capital  had  ever  returned,  and 
modestly  asked  whether  it  would  not  be 
better  to  satisfy  themselves  beyond  a  doubt 
that  there  was  such  a  city,  adding  that 
the  location  of  the  city  would  determine 
which  of  all  the  roads  was  the  right  one. 

The  leaders  heard  these  words  with 
amazement.  They  denounced  the  speaker 
as  a  wretch  without  morality,  spirituality, 
or  reverence,  and  thereupon  he  was  torn  in 
pieces. 

ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL. 


PART    II. 
AGNOSTICISM. 


RATIONALISM  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude  to 
him  who  coined  the  word  "agnostic."' 
Previously  there  had  been  only  "  infidel " 
and  "  atheist,"  and  one  or  two  other  similar 
terms,  all  irate  bayonets  pointed  at  the 
very  teeth  of  orthodoxy.  They  were  words, 
too,  that  had  attained  a  kind  of  rowdy, 
buccaneering  prominence  ;  they  appeared 
to  prowl,  like  verbal  guerillas,  upon  the 
outskirts  of  accepted  vocabularies.  Be 
sides,  they  failed  clearly  to  express,  in 
many  cases,  the  mental  attitudes  of  those 
to  whom  they  were  applied.  A  good  many 
sensible  and  moral  people  abode  in  the 
world  who  felt  as  averse  to  denying  the  ex 
istence  of  a  deity  as  they  did  to  affirming 
it.  They  resembled,  to  a  certain  degree, 
the  chancellor  in  Tennyson's  "  Sleeping 
Beauty,"  who  diplomatically 

"  Dallied  with  his  golden  chain  and  smiling  put  the 
question  by." 

25 


26  Agnosticism. 

Still,  about  the  real  agnostic  spirit  there  is 
much  more  sincerity  than  diplomacy.  It 
means,  in  its  finest  sense,  a  courageous  en 
visaging  of  the  awful  problems  of  life  and 
death,  and  an  admission  of  their  total  in 
solubility.  It  might  almost,  in  particular 
temperaments  and  personalities,  be  said  to 
have  become  a  sort  of  new  religion  by  it 
self,  simpler  than  that  of  Comte,  with  his 
complex  and  deliberated  apings  of  Christian 
forms,  and  yet  capable  in  some  respects  of 
being  classed  with  Positivism.  At  the 
same  time,  a  very  large  majority  of  agnos 
tics  are  quite  without  the  reverential  sense. 
"I  do  not  know"  precludes  in  them  all 
tendency  to  "divine"  or  to  "feel."  Nor 
should  they  be  blamed  for  this  indifference, 
reluctance,  or  whatever  it  may  be  called. 
Emotion  and  reason  have  an  arctic  and  ant 
arctic  divergence. 

The  average  type  of  agnostic  has  reached 
his  present  position  through  the  help  of 
reason,  and  therefore  he  cannot  be  expected 
to  abandon  the  power  which  has  made  him 
what  he  is.  That  power  would  not  desert 
him,  indeed,  even  if  he  should  try  to  ex 
orcise  it.  He  recognizes  this  truth  and  so 
patiently  accepts  the  ally  with  which 
destiny  has  provided  him.  If  he  leans 


Agnosticism.  27 

toward  absolute  atheism — toward  a  denial 
of  any  conscious  and  intelligent  ruler 
of  the  universe — he  does  so  because  vast 
weight  of  evidence  impels  him.  in  that 
direction,  while  a  comparatively  small  in 
fluence  lures  him  in  another.  Not  long  ago 
an  eminent  thinker  said  to  me,  in  a  moment 
of  colloquial  confidence  :  "  Truly,  the  most 
extraordinary  idea  which  ever  entered  the 
brain  of  man  is  that  of  a  personal,  over- 
watching  deity."  Most  modern  agnostics 
may  be  said  to  hold  precisely  this  amazed 
view  of  the  case.  And  yet  they  will  not 
deny  the  deity  either  of  ecclesiastic  faith  or 
of  operative  imagination.  No  one  has  ever 
seen  the  other  side  of  the  moon,  and  if  you 
were  to  tell  an  agnostic  that  you  felt  sure 
this  concealed  lunar  hemisphere  was  blazing 
with  active  volcanoes  he  would  not  consider 
himself  authorized  to  deny  your  statement. 
He  might  seriously  doubt  it,  but  he  would 
not  deny  it.  His  quarrel  with  the  atheist 
is  not  bitter,  but  it  is  appreciable.  The 
latter  declares  "There  is  no  god,"  but  the 
former,  firmly  as  he  may  believe  so,  scorns 
assertion  based  upon  partial  proof.  "Until 
I  have  solved  the  secret  of  the  universe," 
says  the  agnostic,  "  I  shall  forbear  from 
stating  how,  why  or  by  whom  it  was 


28  Agnosticism. 

created."  He  realizes  just  how  potent  an 
CEdipus  is  requisite  to  make  the  Sphinx 
cast  herself  into  the  sea. 

What,  may  be  asked,  are  the  causes  which 
lead  agnosticism  to  doubt  that  an  almighty, 
tutelary  and  merciful  power  dwells  behind 
the  manifestations  of  nature  ?  In  the  first 
place  one  might  almost  affirm  that  the  good 
and  evil  which  we  see  around  us  make  any 
kind  of  conscious  beneficent  power  beyond 
them  a  self-contradiction  if  not  a  nullity. 
For  it  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  virtuous 
and  omnipotent  god  permitting  misery 
such  as  that  with  which  our  planet  teems, 
and  it  is  equally  hard  to  conceive  of  a 
diabolic  and  omnipotent  god  not  stamp 
ing  out  the  happiness  which  also  cer 
tainly  abounds  upon  earth.  John  Stuart 
Mill  has  suggested  the  possibility  of  there 
being  two  gods  forever  at  war  with  one 
another,  from  whose  perpetual  contest  all 
admirable  and  deplorable  things  result ; 
but  this  acute  English  thinker  has  touched 
upon  the  idea  of  such  a  celestial  antago 
nism  with  a  delicacy  that  might  be  defined 
as  the  irony  of  metaphysics,  and  no  one 
more  clearly  apprehended  than  did  he  the 
complete  idleness  of  mere  a  priori  specula 
tion.  Again,  agnosticism  has  to-day  con- 


Agnosticism.  29 

vinced  itself  that  all  religions  bear  the  sure 
evidence  of  having  originated  solely  in 
man's  intercourse  with  his  fellow-men.  At 
the  root  of  all  worship  lies  one  element — 
that  of  fear,  and  the  fear-begotten  desire 
to  propitiate  some  hostile  though  viewless 
agency.  Christianity,  and  other  creeds  de 
pendent  upon  a  so-called  "  revelation,"  have 
never  produced  a  single  authentic  proof  of 
their  validity.  Waiving  members  of  the 
Brahmin,  the  Buddhist,  the  Mohammedan, 
the  Parsee,  and-  of  other  noteworthy  faiths, 
no  Christian  would  at  the  present  time  ac 
cept  for  an  instant  as  credible  any  fact  so 
faintly  supported  by  historic  data  as  that 
of  the  alleged  miraculous  birth  of  Christ, 
not  to  mention  his  having  turned  water 
into  wine,  his  having  caused  a  dead  man 
to  live  again,  or  his  having  defied  the  laws 
of  gravitation  by  floating  up  into  the  sky 
and  so  disappearing  before  the  gaze  of  a 
multitude.  But  the  Christian  insists  upon 
accepting  as  facts  these  follies  redolent  of 
the  grossest  ignorance  and  superstition. 
The  Christian  unhesitatingly  asserts,  too, 
that  morality  is  a  product  of  direct  revela 
tion  from  some  sort  of  anthropomorphic 
spirit  to  mankind,  instead  of  having  been 
gradually  evolved  through  slow  stages  of 


30  Agnosticism. 

civilization,   which    began  at   a   condition 
lower  than  barbarism  or  cannibalism.    The 
Christian  clings  to  this  astonishing  tenet 
in  the  face  of  all  that  science  has  so  ably 
and  amply  taught  him    to    the    contrary. 
And  yet  he  by  no  means  rejects  the  copious 
and  precious  teachings  of  science.     He  re 
spects  them,  indeed,  with  all  the  practical 
ardor  of  an  agnostic.     If  the  wind   blows 
harsh  from  the   east  he  does  not  content 
himself   with    praying    to    his  god  that   it 
may  fail  to  inflict  pneumonia  upon  his  fa 
vorite  child.     He   bids   that  child   button 
stout  wraps  about   the  person  and  avoid 
breathing    too   deeply    the    icy    air.      No 
amount  of  trust   in  "  providence "    would 
induce  him  to  let  a  bushel  of  rotting  vege 
tables  pollute  his  cellar  for  a  single  day. 
When  he  or  any  one  dear  to  him  is  ill,  he 
seeks  physician  and  not  parson.     Even  if 
he  be  a  Roman  Catholic,  he  gives  the  calo 
mel  or  the  quinine,  the  nux  vomica  or  the 
bismuth,  full  curative  scope,  before  he  wel 
comes  the  hollow  mummery  of  extreme  unc 
tion.    In  all  his  goings  and  comings,  among 
all    the    details    of    his    daily    routine,   the 
Christian  is  quite  as  much  a  servant  and 
devotee   of  scientific   discovery  and   testi 
mony   as    the    most    pronounced    agnostic 


Agnosticism.  3 1 

who  ever  smiled  at  the  absurdities  of  an 
Adam,  an  Eve  and  an  Eden.  He  will  tell 
youone  minute  thata  benign  tenderness  and 
compassion  are  forever  invisibly  befriending 
him,  and  he  will  refer,  the  next,  to  having 
taken  passage  for  Europe  on  a  particular 
line  of  steamers  because  that  is  notorious 
ly  the  safest.  If  his  house  be  insufficiently 
guarded  against  lightning  and  yet  be 
struck  some  day  without  injury  resulting 
to  any  of  its  occupants,  he  will  fall  on  his 
knees,  most  probably,  in  heartfelt  thanks 
giving  to  a  kindly  and  protective  person 
ality  whose  august  will  forges  the  thunder 
bolt  and  determines  its  flight.  But  on  the 
following  day  he  will  be  sure,  if  he  can  af 
ford  it,  to  have  the  whole  house  well- 
equipped  with  lightning-rods. 

From  proofs  like  these  the  agnostic  finds 
himself  arguing  that  the  Christian  does  not 
believe  half  so  implicitly  as  he  is  under  the 
impression  that  he  believes.  For,  if  his  be 
lief  were  absolute,  he  would  ignore  his  nat 
ural  environment  a  great  deal  more  than  he 
already  does,  in  a  fixed  certainty  that  what 
was  to  be  would  be,  and  that  from  first  to 
last  his  mortal  career  was  under  a  clement 
and  sympathizing  guardianship.  Or,  if  it 
were  really  credited  by  the  Christian  that 


32  Agnosticism. 

human  ills  befall  the  faithful  as  blessings 
in  disguise,  then  he  would  nerve  himself  to 
receive  such  apparent  disasters  with  ten 
times  that  stoicism  which  we  now  see  him 
exhibit. 

That  any  other  than  a  god  of  exquisite 
cruelty  should  inflict  these  disasters  upon 
mankind  while  the  centuries  continue  to 
roll  along,  puzzles  the  agnostic  in  marked 
degree.  Nothing  is  more  common  than  to 
hear,  from  enthusiastic  Christians,  words 
that  express  passionate  encomium  of  the 
grandeur  and  splendor  of  creation.  "  How 
could  all  this  beauty  and  magnificence  ex 
ist,"  they  cry,  "  unless  a  god  of  surpassing 
worth  and  wisdom  produced  them  ?"  But 
they  forget  that  for  every  agreeable  or  al 
luring  feature  there  is  one  correspondingly 
odious  and  repellent.  If  the  rose  blooms, 
the  poisonous  plant  thrives  as  well.  If  the 
sky  bends  blue  and  lucid  above  us,  the 
tempest,  with  shafts  of  death  and  hurrj-__ 
canes  of  ruin,  also  has  its  reign  there.  (  If 
health  glows  in  certain  faces,  disease  rav 
ages  others.  If  sanity  is  the  blessed  en 
dowment  of  many  minds,  madness  is  to 
many  a  curse  and  bane.  (If  sexual  love 
finds  often  its  rightful  and  genial  gratifica 
tion,  often  it  finds  a  terrible  discontent,  an  \ 


Agnosticism.  3  3 

agonizing  repulsey  If  there  are  the  buoy 
ancy  and  gladness  of  youth,  so  are  there 
the  decrepitude  and  pathos  of  old  age.  If 
there  is  the  joy  of  perfect  marriage,  so  is 
there  the  sorrow  of  the  widower  and  the 
widow — or,  perhaps  even  worse,  the  troub 
lous  disunion  of  ill-mated  pairs.  And  thus 
the  chain  of  contrast  might  be  extended, 
until  we  have  seen  that,  link  by  link,  it  all 
means  just  so  much  happiness  for  just  so 
much  distress,  just  so  much  light  for  just 
so  much  darkne&s. 

Now,  if  an  affectionate  god  is  the  author 
of  all  that  we  term  good,  we  cannot  deny 
his  accountability  for  all  that  we  term  evil. 
If  he  made  the  lily,  in  its  chaste  and  odor 
ous  loveliness,  he  made  the  cancer,  a  flower 
of  hideous  petal  and  mephitic  exhalation. 
Nor  will  it  serve  us  to  affirm  that  all  bale 
ful  things  in  life  are  the  offspring  of  a  hid 
den,  inscrutable  charity  toward  the  race. 
It  is  within  the  limit  of  every  man's  imag 
ination  to  picture  himself  as  realizing,  in 
some  post-mortem  state,  that  all  afflictions 
poured  upon  humanity  have  indeed  been 
"for  the  best."  But  even  if  he  were  then 
to  concede  that  this  had  been  wholly  true, 
he  could  never  fairly  avoid  the  declaration 
that  anguish  and  calamity  are,  here  and 


34  Agnosticism. 

now,  persecutions  and  martyrdoms  ruth 
lessly  wreaked  upon  his  living  earthly  kin 
dred.  He  must  always  have  that  quarrel 
with  any  god  he  might  meet  outside  of  the 
flesh  from  which  he  has  escaped.  [To  le 
grand  peutetre  he  must  always  be  ready  to 
present  le  grand  pourquoi^)  At  least,  he 
must  do  so  if  we  can  speak  of  a  disembod 
ied  soul  as  an  entity  to  be  dealt  with  by 
laws  of  human  consciousness.  And  how 
else  can  we  possibly  deal  with  such  an 
entity? 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  can  we  deal  with 
it  at  all  ?  Do  we  know,  even  in  the  vaguest 
way,  what  the  words  'a  disembodied  soul ' 
mean  ?  They,  and  the  melodious  polysyl 
lable,  '  immortality,'  pass  glibly  enough 
from  the  lips.  A  great  many  estimable 
people  are  quite  sure  that  they  know  pre 
cisely  what  is  meant  in  the  utterance  of 
them.  But  in  reality  these  expressions  are 
quite  wild  and  void.  It  will  not  do  to  say 
that  the  Bible  has  told  us  what  they  mean, 
for  even  admitting  that  the  Bible  be  not  a 
book  wrought  by  excessively  ignorant  and 
superstitious  men  from  material  in  part  if 
not  wholly  fabulous,  the  information  which 
it  conveys  on  subjects  of  a  supernatural 
import  is  of  no  more  real  value  than  a  tale 


Agnosticism.  35 

like  that  of  Leda  and  the  Swan  or  any  of 
the  thousand  myths  embedded  amid  other 
creeds.  There  is  not  the  slightest  reason 
why  we  should  look  upon  the  chronicle  of 
either  Jeremiah  or  St.  Matthew,  of  either 
Samuel  or  St.  Mark,  as  veracious.  No  his 
torian  of  the  least  real  repute  would,  at  the 
present  day,  affirm  them  to  be  so.  The 
very  existence  of  that  particular  Christ 
whose  life  and  death  are  recorded  in  the 
New  Testament  is  by  no  means  a  proven 
fact.  The  ridiculous  story  that  he  was 
born  of  a  virgin  is  scarcely  less  to  be  re 
spected  by  unbiassed  judges  than  the  story 
that  he  was  ever  born  at  all.  He  is  a  fig 
ure  not  a  whit  more  actual  than  Helen  of 
Sparta,  Achilles  or  Hector,  and  the  entire 
legend  of  his  crucifixion  has  no  more  his 
toric  weight  than  that  of  the  siege  of  Troy. 
But  there  probably  was  an  Achilles,  a 
siege  of  Troy,  and  there  probably  was  a 
Christ,  a  crucifixion.  No  proof  that  his 
Messiah  was  divine  seems  to  the  Christian 
a  stronger  one  than  such  reported  words 
and  deeds  as  those  of  the  four  gospels. 
Yet  here  are  both  words  and  deeds  which 
often  partake  rather  of  the  anchorite's  aus 
tere  self-mortification  and  asceticism  than 
of  the  liberal  and  virile  philanthropist's 


36  Agnosticism. 

doctrines  and  axioms.  The  character  of 
Christ,  as  his  apostles  depict  it,  is  that  of  a 
sweet-souled,  pure-minded  communist,  yet 
it  is  also  an  individuality  fiTled  witfi  im 
practicable  meekness  and  a  tendency  to 
ward  beautiful  yet  dangerous  kindliness  in 
its  dealings  with  the  frailties,  crimes  and 
sins  of  society.  The  best  and  purest  of 
modern  Christians  could  not  conscien 
tiously  endorse  the  pardoning  posture 
shown  by  this  Christ  whom  he  so  adores. 
It  is  one  thing  to  worship  such  an  un- 
flawed  spirit  as  an  ideal  of  mildness  and 
compassion  ;  it  is  another  to  approve  meas 
ures  of  lowlihead  and  amiability  which,  if 
carried  out  in  the  government  of  multi 
tudes  by  an  executive,  would  entail  an 
archy  of  the  worst  license.  We  cannot  tell 
hardened  culprits  to  go  and  sin  no  more ; 
they  are  always  glad  enough  to  "go,"  but 
their  wrongdoing  is  not  half  so  easy  of 
dismissal.  To  be  roughly  assaulted  by 
some  miscreant  and  to  bid  him  assault 
us  again — to  turn  the  other  cheek  toward 
him  after  he  has  smitten  us  upon  one — is 
a  personal  revelation  of  self-control  com 
mendable  only  within  the  limits  of  Christ's 
especial  disposition: — that  of  altruistic 
goodfellowship,  equally  wide  and  indulgent 


Agnosticis  /// .  37 

But  if  we  overlook  the  question  of  slighted 
self-respect,  how  can  we  approve,  in  this 
connection,  a  course  so  fatally  destructive 
to  all  true  social  order  as  that  of -forgive 
ness  for  wrong  and  outrage  unaccompanied 
by  the  least  thought  of  corrective  discipline 
and  punishment?  Christ,  during  the  brief 
period  that  he  is  said  to  have  appeared  be 
fore  men,  preached  a  theory  which  would 
have  flung  open  the  doors  of  prisons  and 
set  loose  upon  cities  and  communities  the 
most  depraved  desperadoes  whom  iron 
cages  ever  sought  to  detain.  And  this 
form  of  counsel  in  him  his  worshippers 
have  admired  as  a  piece  of  poetic  abstrac 
tion  alone.  They  have  no  more  made  it 
the  actual  rule  of  their  lives  than  they 
have  thus  made  the  socialistic  ''  leave  all 
anSiollow  me"  of  his  other  celebrated 
sayings. 

But  while  agnosticism  of  to-day  recoils 
from  much  that  Christ  has  been  accredited 
with  stating  and  desiring  as  devoid  of  due 
dignity  for  the  individual  and  without 
proper  adhesive  effect  upon  society  at  large, 
it  still  fails  to  see  in  surrounding  nature 
even  a  vague  confirmation  of  the  promise 
which  this  lovely  and  smooth-voiced 
prophet  so  perpetually  gives  us  of  a  life 


38  Agnosticism. 

after  death.  That  wittiest  and  occasion 
ally  saddest  of  writers,  Dumas  the  younger, 
is  said  to  have  inscribed  these  words  in  the 
album  of  a  friend  who  solicited  some  sen 
timent  over  his  autograph  :  u L'espoir  qua 
I'homme  de  la  vie  immortelle  lui  vient  de  son 
dc'sespoir  de  se  trouver  mortcl  dans  celui-ci^ 
Here,  one  might  say,  lies  the  whole  pith 
and  marrow  of  modern  if  not  ancient  re 
ligion.  fOur  despair  of  being  mortal  in 
this  world  prompts  us  to  fabricate  for  our 
selves  an  eternal  duration  in  some  other  !/ 
And  yet  the  epigram  of  Dumas  has  not 
touched  the  entire  truth.  Epigrams  rarely 
do  that  ;  they  are  fire-flies  glittering  in  dark 
places  but  not  illuminating  them,  and  they 
show  us  little  except  their  own  transitory 
brightness.  He  neglects  that  impulse  of 
hope  in  every  healthful  human  breast — 
that  "  will  to  live,"  which  is  the  one  solid 
grain  of  truth  in  Schopenhauer's  and  Von 
Hartmann's  brilliant  though  faulty  philoso 
phies.  The  vast  majority  of  mankind  can 
not  help  believing  in  a  future  existence, 
because  for  men  not  to  have  hope  is  either 
to  be  the  victim  of  distemper  or  else  to 
verge  upon  death  itself.  Forms  of  insanity 
called  melancholia  and  suicidal  mania  show 
a  complete  collapse  of  this  energy  ;  the 


Agnosticism.  39 

skilled  physician  knows  well  these  symp 
toms  in  his  demented  patient,  unless  it  may 
he  that  their  sudden  manifestation  defeats 
his  most  wary  vigilance.  Yet  agnosticism, 
which  insists  upon  regarding  facts  and  re 
jecting  such  fanciful  ghosts  of  them  as 
strut  in  their  borrowed  robes,  has  clearly 
taught  itself  that  our  hopes  of  immortality 
bear  an  exact  analogous  relation  to  our 
yearnings  and  desires  in  all  affairs  of  a 
more  restricted  yet  equally  pungent  kind. 
Supposing  that  we  are  in  a  state  of  ordi 
nary  health,  we  wake  at  a  certain  hour  of 
the  morning  after  a  fairly  restful  sleep. 
Our  pulse  is  firm;  our  liver  acts  ;  the  ma 
chinery  of  vitality  does  not  falter.  Imme 
diately,  as  soon  as  we  are  well  awake,  we 
begin  plans  for  the  day,  we  bethink  our 
selves  of  engagements  made  on  the  day 
previous,  we  wish  to  enter  upon  one  more 
diurnal  routine  of  employment,  duty  and 
diversion.  Agnostics  or  Christians,  we 
have  this  same  quiet,  automatic  longing. 
And  yet  the  extreme  futility  of  all  human 
endeavor,  the  evanescence  of  all  we  pur 
pose  and  perform,  may  be  and  often  is 
inexorably  clear  to  the  agnostic,  while  he 
himself  would  nevertheless  be  the  first  to 
admit  that  a  strenuous  force  which  he  can- 


40  Agnosticism. 

not  explain  forever  lifts  and  buoys  him. 
But  with  the  ill  or  ailing  man  how  differ- 
ent  it  is  !  *,  A  pessimist  might  maintain  that 
the  jaundiced  eyes  of  such  a  man  often 
behold  us  as  the  masque  of  shadows  we 
really  are.  To  his  despondent  brain  life 
will  sometimes  appear  as  arid  and  weari 
some  as  a  burnt  prairie  under  a  sky  of 
slate,  The  concept  of  an  immortality  for 
the  human  soul  will  seem  to  him  like  some 
remote  conjecture  born  of  a  fanatic's 
re very. 

And  such  it  really  deserves  to  be  called. 
The  agnostic,  though  he  may  hope  to  win 
it  or  though  he  may  prefer  the  nepenthean 
boon  of  complete  annihilation,  sees  that, 
for  all  he  can  possibly  learn  to  the  contrary, 
it  shines  the  ignis  faiuus  which  must  per 
petually  evade  philosophic  grasp.  With 
wings  wrought  from  rainbows,  and  eyes 
from  stars,  it  is  but  the  intangible  child  of 
story,  song  and  dream.  Like  the  K\i.6i  J.IGI 
of  Homeric  text,  reference  to  it  constantly 
recurs  on  page  after  page  of  the  immense 
book  of  life.  The  tale  of  no  nation  could 
be  adequately  told  without  it,  and  when 
ever  fancy  has  conspired  with  faith  to 
achieve  the  most  madcap  results  of  illusion, 
we  are  confronted  by  its  Elysiums,  Valhal- 


Agnosticism.  41 

las  and  Nirwanas.  But  the  agnostic  well 
understands  that  the  species  of  theological 
ecstasy  which  has  always  surrounded  it 
conduces  ill  toward  a  proper  logical  sur 
vey.  <(  Refrain,"  says  Herbert  Spencer,  in 
his  great  '  Psychology/  "from  rendering 
your  terms  into  ideas,  and  you  may  reach 
any  conclusion  whatever.  *  The  whole  is 
equal  to  its  part '  is  a  proposition  that  may 
be  quite  comfortably  entertained,  so  long 
as  neither  wholes  nor  parts  are  imagined." 
It  will  probably 'be  many  centuries  before 
mankind  at  length  abandons  all  belief  in 
immortality.  Resembling  not  a  few  sim 
ilar  delusions,  it  possesses  undeniable 
charm,  and  has  that  sort  of  beauty  which 
the  astute  Mr.  Lecky  tells  us  that  religious 
ideas,  like  a  dying  sun,  expend  their  last 
rays  in  creating. 

Agnosticism  finds  little  rebuff  nowadays 
for  its  lack  of  conventional  belief.  The 
pulpiteers  make  "  infidelity "  their  texts, 
it  is  true,  but  it  takes  a  very  ardent  church 
goer,  among  really  intelligent  classes  of 
church-goers,  not  to  compare  the  keen,  lim 
pid  reasoning  of  our  modern  scientific 
writers  with  the  mystic,  turgid,  involved 
utterances  of  the  Bible  greatly  to  the  lat- 
ter's  disadvantage.  There  is  more  moral 


42  Agnosticism. 

profit  in  half-a-dozen  pages  of  Herbert 
Spencer's  "Data  of  Ethics"  or  "Social 
Statics"  than  in  all  the  statements  of  Paul, 
vague,  problematic,  transcendental.  And 
yet  the  accusation  of  unmoral  apathy  and 
indifference  is  often  brought  against  agnos 
ticism.  "It  builds  no  hospitals,"  cry  its 
foes  ;  "  it  endows  no  charities  ;  it  is  pagan 
in  its  unconcern  for  the  sufferings  of  hu 
manity.  It  is  so  occupied  in  sneering  at 
Holy  Writ  that  it  forgets  the  sweet  lessons 
of  loving- kindness  and  of  devotion  to  an 
unstained  ideal  with  which  those  deathless 
leaves  abound."  Now,  agnosticism  forgets 
nothing  of  the  sort,  and  is  willing  to  give 
the  New  Testament  credit  for  every  line 
and  word  of  sound  ethics  contained  there, 
just  as  it  is  unsparing  in  its  denunciation 
and  disgust  when  asked  an  opinion  of  those 
crimes  and  horrors  with  which  the  records 
of  the  Old  Testament  teem,  and  of  that 
bloody,  vengeful  Jehovah  who  makes  up 
for  not  possessing  the  sensualism  and  lust 
of  Jupiter  by  exhibiting  ten  times  more  of 
his  deliberate  cruelty  and  hatred.  Agnos 
ticism  is  very  far,  moreover,  from  the  cal 
lous  indifference  with  which  it  is  so  fre 
quently  charged.  If  it  has  not  erected 
manv  charitable  institutions  and  has  headed 


Agnosticism.  43 

few  eleemosynary  lists,  we  must  remember 
that  it  has  not,  like  Christianity,  almost 
two  thousand  years  behind  it.  There  have 
been  a  great  many  lukewarm  Christians, 
if  almsgiving  is  a  test  of  the  liner  devoted- 
ness.  But  already  agnosticism  has  made, 
in  this  respect,  an  excellent  showing,  when 
we  consider  its  youth  as  a  modern  move 
ment — a  nineteenth-century  wave  of  ten 
dency  —  apart  from  earlier  unorthodox 
growths. /"Professor  Felix  Adler  has  deep 
ly  and  valuably  interested  himself  in  tene 
ment-house  reform,  and  many  another  New 
York  citizen  (to  say  nothing  of  those  in 
London)  yearly  gives  large  sums  to  the 
poor,  unstimulated  bv__any  expectation  of 
receiving  angelic  compound  interest  here 
after  upon  his  earthly  loan.  Indeed,  I 
learned,  not  long  ago,  that  the  English 
poet,  Mr.  William  Morris,  had  expended  a 
large  fortune  in  aiding  what  he  believed  to 
be  the  cause  of  the  poor  against  the  rich.  Mr. 
Morris's  motives  may  be  declared  socialis 
tic  rather  than  simply  and  humanely  gen 
erous;  but  they  nevertheless  afford  one 
more  instance  of  a  rationalist  and  free 
thinker  who  does  not  live  in  selfish  disre 
gard  of  his  fellow-men.  In  fact  this  fling 
at  agnosticism  as  being  so  cold-blooded- 


44  Agnosticism* 

ly  epicurean  resembles  the  absurd  rumors 
which  were  set  afloat  after  the  deaths  of 
Voltaire  and  Thomas  Paine.  It  is  prob 
able  that  these  two  famous  infidels  died 
very  much  the  same  as  ordinary  mortals 
die,  though  a  few  random,  delirious  mur 
murs  may  have  been  readily  misinterpreted 
by  partisan  listeners.  Not  long  ago  we 
had  occasion  to  see  with  what  sweet  and 
sublime  courage  a  freethinker  could 
breathe  his  last,  when  Courtlandt  Palmer 
summoned  wife  and  children  to  his  bedside 
and  addressed  them  in  words  full  of  the 
gentlest  and  most  fearless  tranquillity. 
And  yet  if  Palmer's  mind  had  wandered, 
at  the  last,  and  some  grisly  hallucination 
had  chanced  to  usurp  it,  how  probable  that 
there  would  have  been  somebody — a  servant, 
perhaps,  or  one  of  the  country-folk  in  that 
quiet  Vermont  retreat  where  his  death  oc 
curred — who  would  have  asserted  mon 
strous  things  about  his  final  "  remorseful 
agonies"  ! 

As  for  charitable  inclination  on  the  part 
of  agnosticism,  it  is  just  as  certain  to  aug 
ment  with  increasing  years  as  frigid  ava 
rice  is  certain  to  develop.  There  was  never 
a  more  preposterous  statement  than  that 
the  religion  of  Christ  brought  humanita- 


Agnosticism.  45 

rianism  into  the  world.  Man's  pity  for  his 
fellow-man  existed  a  thousand  years  pre 
viously  in  India,  where  hospitals  were 
among  the  comforts  of  civilization.  Very 
possibly  the  standard  of  physical  health  in 
Greece  and  Rome  was  far  above  ours,  and 
hence  hospitals  were  not  required  in  either 
nation.  If  it  were  true,  as  so  often  has 
been  affirmed,  that  the  Romans  exposed 
their  old  people  to  die  on  an  island  in  the 
Tiber,  then  such  action  (grossly  inconsist 
ent  with  the  splendid  morality  of  the  race 
previous  to  its  downfall)  must  be  explained 
as  the  deed  perpetrated  by  a  clique  rather 
than  a  class — and  a  most  depraved  and 
vagabond  one  at  that.  And  even  in  the 
latter  case  these  exposed  persons  were 
probably  slaves.  Both  Rome  and  Greece, 
the  countries  that  produced  Caesar  and 
Themistocles,  Cicero  and  Aristotle,  were 
cursed  by  slavery.  So  was  the  United 
States,  until  a  few  years  ago.  Who  shall 
presume  to  say  that  in  this  highly  Chris 
tian  country  cruelties  have  not  taken  place 
that  might  bring  envious  glitters  into  the 
eyes  of  a  Caligula  ?  And  if  agnosticism  had 
been  a  prevailing  characteristic  of  the 
populace  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line, 
how  easy  to  have  held  it  blamable  for  the 


46  Agnosticism. 

brutalities  of  the  whipping-post,  the  drunk 
en  overseer,  the  hideous  auction  and  the 
pursuant  bloodhound  !  In  the  days  of 
their  real  glory  Greece  and  Rome  were 
marked  by  a  phenomenal  refinement  and 
a  morale  of  surpassing  integrity.  Chris 
tianity,  which  may  be  said  to  have  bathed 
Europe  in  bloodshed,  brought  also  the  im 
passioned  zealot  with  his  dreams  of  heav 
enly  bliss  and  the  martyr  with  his  unflinch 
ing  gaze  at  the  fagots  which  were  to  con 
sume  him.  But  there  are  no  grander  ex 
amples  in  mediaeval  times  of  unswerving 
adherence  to  duty  at  the  price  of  absolute 
self-sacrifice  and  self-immolation  than  those 
given  us  in  ancient  times  by  such  men  as 
Brutus  and  Virginius.  And  if  agnosticism 
should  wish  to  point  toward  a  man  of  un 
paralleled  probity,  consistency  and  bravery 
as  its  representative,  what  figure  could 
more  sufficiently  stand  for  these  qualities 
than  that  intrepid  and  picturesque  one 
of  Giordano  Bruno  ?  When  we  consider 
the  superb  intellectual  heights  which  were 
attained  by  Athens,  how  nonsensical  seems 
the  claim  that  Christianity  bore  civili 
zation  in  its  wake,  or  that  what  we  call 
European  civilization  was  anything  except 
that  evolutional  result  of  cerebral  and 


Agnosticism.  47 

climatic  conditions  indicated  so  compe 
tently  by  Buckle,  Draper  and  writers  of 
their  forceful  calibre  !  (Full  as  many  sins 
as  virtues  have  been  committed  in  the  name 
of  the  Cross.  The  Inquisition,  the  Massacre 
of  St.  Bartholomew,  the  slaughter  of  the 
Albigenses,  the  appalling  persecutions  of 
the  Jews,  all  should  now  belong  to  the  veryj 
alphabet  of  juvenile  instruction.  But  alas  ![ 
it  is  not  every  child  who  is  permitted  to; 
profit  by  such  historic  truths  in  their  can4 
did  nakedness.  Happily,  the  children  of] 
agnostics  are  always  allowed  this  privilege,/ 
A  novel  which  has  for  many  months 
been  occupying  the  attention  of  English 
and  American  readers,  presumably  has 
won  its  great  vogue  from  the  challenge 
which  its  charming  though  not  profound 
pages  have  cast  at  agnosticism.  There 
are  few  more  entertaining  stories  than 
"  Robert  Elsmere,"  and  if  it  were  a  trifle 
more  chiselled  in  style  than  it  already  is,  it 
might  easily  take  rank  among  the  master 
pieces  of  fiction.  This  is  said,  however, 
purely  from  the  literary  standpoint ;  from 
the  standpoint  of  sincere  and  valid  think 
ing  it  is  a  work  narrow  with  all  the  pecul 
iar  and  "trimming"  narrowness  of  the  late 
Matthew  Arnold,  whose  influence  has  been 


48  Agnosticism* 

diffused  through  its  pages  and  who  easily 
shows  himself  as  the  Mentor  of  its  creative 
Telemachus.  Robert  Elsmere  is  a  noble 
and  lovable  being,  and  one  plainly  meant 
by  the  author  to  express  liberalism  and 
large-minded  ness  at  the  very  last  limit  of 
their  admissible  extension.  But  Mrs.  Ward, 
like  her  kinsman  and  posthumous  coadju 
tor,  Matthew  Arnold,  halts  at  a  point  plainly 
within  the  bounds  of  conventional  thought. 
Elsmere,  though  trained  as  an  English 
clergyman,  gives  up  his  living  because  a 
belief  in  the  "divinity"  of  Christ  has  be 
come  to  him  a  void  and  sham.  But  in 
stead  of  allowing  full  play  to  his  rich  gifts 
of  fellowship  and  helpfulness  without  fur 
ther  concern  for  the  ghost-worship  from 
which  he  should  now  be  happily  freed,  we 
find  him  building  a  new  faith  upon  the 
ruins  of  the  old.  Unitarianism  has  always 
been  one  of  the  drollest  of  compromises 
between  Christianity  and  agnosticism  ;  and 
although  Elsmere  does  not  attempt  to  walk 
on  this  curious  bridge  that  joins  two  such 
widely  different  banks,  he  nevertheless 
clearly  avoids  that  boldness  and  justice  of 
mental  demeanor  which  might  have  been 
expected  from  a  man  of  both  his  native  and 
cultivated  equipments.  Mr.  Huxley  says  : 


Agnosticism.  49 

"  If  a  man  asks  me  what  the  politics  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  moon  are,  and  I  reply 
that  I  do  not  know,  that  neither  I  nor  any 
one  else  have  any  means  of  knowing,  and 
that  under  these  circumstances  I  decline  to 
/  trouble  myself  about  the  subject,  I  do  not 
think  he  has  any  right  to  call  me  a  skep 
tic.'*  Robert  Elsmere  might  with  consist 
ency  and  excellent  common-sense  have 
taken  a  stand  like  this.  Yet  no  ;  he  had 
renounced  Christ,  but  he  must  still  concern 
himself  with — the  politics  of  the  inhabi 
tants  of  the  moon.  Precisely  as  Matthew  '"\ 
Arnold  was  forever  doing,  he  personifies  J 
all  the  good  in  the  world  with  an  actual* 
wantonness  of  unfortified  assumption,  calls 
it  by  the  name  of  God  and  insists  upon 
paying  it  reverence. 

There  is,  Matthew  Arnold  long  ago 
declared,  a  "  power  not  ourselves  which 
makes  for  righteousness,"  and  it  has  al 
ways  seemed  to  me  that  just  such  enemies 
as  this  talented  and  facile  writer  are  at 
once  the  most  polite  and  most  irritating 
of  any  with  whom  agnosticism  is  called 
upon  to  deal.  Matthew  Arnold  belonged 
to  that  type  of  essayist  and  controversial 
ist  who  is  wrecked  and  enfeebled  by  the 
very  "culture"  of  which  he  is  so  impas- 


SO  Agnosticism. 

sioned  a  convert.  He  diluted  his  own  abil 
ities  into  feebleness  by  mixing  them  with 
dilettanteism.  It  might  be  said  of  him 
that  his  future  fame,  unlike  Keats's,  has 
been  written  not  so  much  in  water  as  in 
Arnold-and-watcr.  Born  under  the  Oxon 
ian  shadow  of  episcopacy,  possessing  a 
father  whom  his  "  Literature  and  Dogma" 
must  have  struck  as  the  riot  and  carnival 
of  heterodoxy,  Matthew  Arnold  was  never 
able  to  welcome  those  honest  doubts  which 
his  own  width  of  intellect  had  summoned. 
The  age  forced  him  to  v/eigh,  to  sift,  to 
investigate  reverend  things  ;  but  he  did  so 
a  contre  cazur,  and  always  with  vivid  mem 
ories  of  how  his  youth  had  treasured  their 
sacredness.  Agnosticism,  pure  and  sim 
ple,  had  for  him  a  violence  of  emphasis 
that  set  his  teeth  on  edge.  It  was  ex 
tremely  unfortunate  for  the  gentleman's 
teeth — rather  more  so  than  for  agnosti 
cism.  He  was  a  man  born  either  too  early 
or  too  late.  Perhaps  it  had  best  be  said  of 
him  that  he  was  born  too  late,  for,  taking 
him  all  in  all,  he  would  have  made  a  much 
better  Church  of  England  dignitary  than 
the  agnostic  he  is  sometimes  incorrectly 
called. 

To  state  that  there  is  a  "  power  not  our- 


Agnosticism.  5 1 

selves  which  makes  for  righteousness"  is  to 
postulate  the  undemonstrable.  It  has  al 
ways  been  the  favorite  method  of  Matthew 
Arnold  and  men  who  resemble  him,  to  let 
sentiment  pose  on  the  pedestals  of  their 
overthrown  gods.  If  there  be  such  a 
power,  what  is  it  ?  Does  it  really  exist 
outside  the  consciousness  of  man  ?  If  so, 
can  its  existence  be  proven,  or  partly 
proven,  or  even  vaguely  revealed  ?  Provided 
my  neighbor  and  I  choose  to  live  an  up 
right  and  sinless  life,  what  is  the  power 
not  ourselves  that  leads  us  to  do  so  ?  Is  not 
the  power  essentially  of  and  in  ourselves  ? 
Is  it  not  a  result  of  our  respective  relation 
ships  with  the  men  and  women  around  us  ? 
Imagine  that  the  planet  contained  but  a 
single  human  being,  and  lo,  the  moral  or 
unmoral  acts  that  he  could  commit  would 
be  reduced  to  almost  a  minimum  !  Even 
suicide  would  not  be  criminal,  for  in  put 
ting  an  end  to  his  solitary  life  this  lone 
creature  would  wound  no  kinsman  or  friend, 
he  would  break  no  dear  ties,  deal  grief  to  no 
loving  hearts,  bring  shame  upon  no  house 
or  clan.  But  give  this  lonely  denizen  of 
earth  a  single  companion,  and  at  once  new 
moral  and  unmoral  conditions  arise.  Say 
that  his  companion  is  feminine,  and  that  the 


52  Agnosticism. 

Adam  who  now  finds  himself  in  the  society 
of  an  Eve  is  called  upon  to  perform  a  hun 
dred  little  acts  of  protective  kindliness 
which  she  in  turn  reciprocates  by  gentle 
sympathies  peculiar  to  her  sex.  Of  neces 
sity  a  new  order  of  moral  conduct  has 
been  established.  There  are  acts  good  and 
evil  which  this  pair  can  mutually  wreak 
upon  one  another.  And  then,  if  we  in 
crease  our  duo  by  one,  two,  three,  or  say 
ten  individuals,  how  complicated  the  rela 
tions  will  become !  We  have  the  begin 
ning  of  a  society  ;  and  in  a  society  all  vir 
tue  and  all  wrongdoing  must  depend  upon 
the  aidful  or  deterrent  relations  between 
its  members. 

Here,  then,  is  where  the  pseudo-liberalism 
of  such  thinkers  as  Matthew  Arnold,  after 
leaving  the  beaten  path  of  Christianity, 
swings  back  to  its  monotheism  and  its 
pietism  by  another  route.  This  is  what 
Robert  Elsmere  does  in  the  engaging  novel 
of  that  name.  He  confuses  his  desire  for 
a  celestial  and  infinite  Friend  (whom  he 
has  accepted  in  the  place  of  a  lost  Christ) 
with  the  meagre  and  insufficient  proofs 
afforded  by  nature  and  all  ethnologic 
history  that  any  such  occult  potency  lives 
outside  of  space  and  time.  Other  men  as 


Agnosticism.  53 

brave  and  fine  as  he  have  had  the  same 
desire  and  yet  have  separated  it  from  the 
perceptive  push  of  their  brains  as  they 
would  winnow  chaff  from  wheat.  Experi 
ence  is  forever  teaching  us  that  the  gulf 
between  what  we  want  and  what  we  get 
here  below  the  visiting  moon  is  indeed 
abysmal.  Into  that  abyss  the  real  agnostic 
unflinchingly  gazes.  Elsmere  had  so  gazed 
as  well,  but  had  grown  foolishly  fascinated 
by  the  bodiless  and  tricksy  sprites  that 
seemed  to  float  through  its  uncharted 
vacuum. 

An  objection  often  made  to  agnosticism 
by  persons  of  penetration  and  scholarship 
is  that  it  destroys  without  replacing,  and 
that  he  only  destroys  who  can  replace.  In 
other  words,  religion,  as  these  excellent 
people  claim,  is  mutable  but  ineradicable  ; 
you  cannot  take  it  away  from  the  human 
race  in  one  form  without  substituting  it  in 
another.  Worship  has  always  been  and 
will  always  be.  Agnosticism  is  not  wor 
ship,  but  simply  negation.  It  can  never 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  mortality  ;  it  can 
never  be  made  to  stand  for  the  rolling 
organ,  the  stately  altar,  the  chanted  hymn, 
the  curling  incense,  the  prayerful  genuflec 
tion.  .  .  .  Now,  the  truth  is,  all  such  dissent 


54  Agnosticism. 

is  founded  upon  a  single  error — that  of  sup 
posing  mankind  has  any  natural  tendency 
to  worship  at  all.  In  his  barbarous  condi 
tions  his  worship  is  grovelling,  and  shows 
clearly  the  terrorism  which  has  induced  it. 
Afterward  fear  changes  to  awe,  and  with 
many  impressionable  persons  (these  being 
chiefly  women)  a  kind  of  love  is  generated, 
perfervid,  idolatrous,  tinged  by  hysteria. 
But  let  us  imagine  that  all  religious  peo 
ple  in  the  world  could  to-morrow  become 
absolutely  certain  this  god  whom  they 
venerate  was  himself  but  a  portion  of  nature, 
subject  to  its  laws  and  powerless  lo  alter 
them  by  the  least  fraction  of  an  infringe 
ment.  What  would  then  result  ?  Would 
not  all  this  zealous  Move'  depart  on  the 
instant  ?  Would  not  the  monk  slip  off  his 
shirt  of  serge,  and  the  nun  forego  her  fasts  ? 
'God  is  love,'  say  the  churchmen.  It 
would  be  equally  true,  judging  from  what 
life  shows  us,  to  declare  that  'God  is  hate.' 
But  truer  than  either  would  it  be  to  main 
tain  that  '  God  is  fear.'  We  cannot  really 
love  an  incorporeal  dream,  a  fantasy  im 
palpable  as  moonlight.  We  may  love  the 
idea  of  loving  it,  and  cultivate  in  ourselves 
that  delicate  or  robust  sort  of  frenzy  which 
is  to  all  religion  what  its  greenness  is  to  a 


Agnosticism.  5  5 

leaf;  but  the  effort  of  evolution  is  rather  to 
produce  in  man  a  complete  discontinuance 
of  prostration  before  unknowable  finalities. 
A  man's  home  is  all  the  church  he  needs. 
Wife  and  children  make  charming  choris 
ters  and  acolytes.  He  can  find  plenty  of 
spiritual  elevation,  if  so  disposed,  in  min 
istering  to  the  needs  and  comforts  of  his 
fellows.  (jThere  is  more  merit  and  import 
in  one  charitable  act  than  in  the  hallelujahs 
and  hosannas  of  a  mighty  concourse.^) 
Prayer  is  merely  a  refinement  of  fetishism.- 
nerbert~l5pencer~  says  that  volumes  could 
be  written  on  the  impiety  of  the  pious  ;  he 
might  have  added  that  volumes  could  also 
be  written  on  the  idiocy  of  prayer.  /To" 
call  god  omniscient,  omnipotent,  an  all-lov 
ing  and  all-merciful  father,  one  moment, 
and  the  next,  perhaps,  implore  him  to  save 
a  treasured  child  in  the  agonies  of  croup  or 
meningitis — who  is  there  that  does  not  see 
the  mockery  of  such  a  contradiction  M 

It  would  be  hard  to  conceive  of  a  more 
peaceful  state  of  things  for  the  world  at 
large  than  that  which  would  result  from  a 
cessation  to  think  at  all  concerning  the  un 
knowable  and  the  beginning  to  accept  some 
pantheistic  creed  like  Spinoza's.  Incessant 
dread  of  what  may  be  the  life  to  come  has 


56  Agnosticism. 

often  caused  neglect  of  the  concerns  and 
demands  of  life  here.  If  we  knew  to-mor 
row  for  a  certainty  that  death  meant  an 
eternal  falling  asleep,  we  should  doubtless 
busy  ourselves  much  more  than  we  do  with 
that  term  of  wakefulness  allotted  to  us. 
As  John  Stuart  Mill  has  most  tellingly  said, 
there  is  horror  in  the  idea  of  dying,  solely 
because  our  minds  insist  upon  fancying 
that  we  should  continue  conscious  after 
ceasing  to  breathe — as  if  any  such  phase 
were  possible  as  that  of  being  dead !  Of 
course  the  actuality  of  death  as  a  dark 
human  ill  could  never  be  argued  away.  It 
is  not  so  much  that  we  feel  the  ego  decay 
ing,  weakening,  and  at  last  ending,  as  that 
we  are  doomed  before  our  own  demise  to 
look  on  those  whom  we  love  or  admire 
while  they  fade  before  our  sight.  Death, 
howsoever  we  rationally  consider  it,  is  a 
curse,  not  alone  because  it  visits  us  in 
countless  ghastly  shapes  and  because  we 
are  never  sure  what  fierce  sufferings  its 
visits  will  entail,  but  because  it  constantly 
tears  from  us  those  whom  we  love  under 
circumstances  of  the  most  immature  and 
ill-timed  quality.  If  we  could  all  live  to  be 
so  old  that  death  would  affect  us  as  ex 
treme  ripeness  affects  a  fruit,  causing  it  to 


Agnosticis  m.  57 

drop  from  its  bough  after  completing  a 
period  of  progressive  and  harmonious 
thrift,  the  dolor  and  exaction  would  be  far 
less  apparent.  But  even  then  pallida  mors 
would  not  be  stripped  of  its  worst  repul 
sion,  for  there  are  many  old  people  who 
yet  cling  to  life  after  senility  has  brought 
them  its  deepest  wrinkles,  its  most  halting 
footsteps.  u  Live  sanely,"  say  the  rn-gien- 
ists,  "and  you  will  die  happily."  (JBut  this 
counsel  is  the  most  fallible  of  apothegms, 
for  there  are  thousands  who  must  live  not 
only  in  the  sanest  way  but  with  the  rigid- 
est  self-denial  in  order  to  live  at  all,  be 
cause  of  inherited  maladies?)  Even  agnos 
tics  will  sometimes  tell  you  that  perpetual 
life  on  this  planet  would  be  wearisome  to 
them  ;  but  what  man  or  woman  could  will 
to  die  if  health  and  the  companionship  of 
a  few  loved  ones  were  vouchsafed  him  ?  To 
live  on  like  Zanoni  or  the  Wandering  Jew 
would  indeed  prove  a  torment  ;  but  pro 
vided  certain  dear  existences  could  be 
healthfully  and  vigorously  prolonged  to 
gether  with  our  own,  what  paradise  ever 
sketched  by  the  most  dazzling  poetic  fancy 
could  equal  the  loveliness  of  this  orb  in 
which  we  now  dwell  ?  Harsh  winters  may 
prevail  upon  certain  tracts  of  it  ;  angry 


58  Agnosticism. 

tempests  may  pour  their  liquid  and  electric 
rage  upon  it  ;  the  tumbling  domains  of  its 
ocean  may  abound  with  shipwreck  ;  heat 
may  often  parch  its  meadows,  and  drouth 
may  turn  its  rivers  to  arid  hollows  of  sand; 
but  the  glorious  beauty  of  our  planet,  its 
charms  of  rock,  sea,  field,  foliage,  land 
scape,  are  an  unending  consolement  and 
delight.  The  extraordinary  reputed  visions 
of  John  in  the  isle  of  Patmos  are  as  noth 
ing  to  it,  nor  could  our  intelligence  evolve 
any  conceivable  picture  in  which  both  col 
ors  and  lines,  howsoever  newly  commin 
gled,  are  not  borrowed  from  its  own.  No  ; 
immortality  here  on  earth,  under  the  cir 
cumstances  just  named,  could  not  well  fail 
ot  enjoyment.  The  very  persons  who  now 
shudder  at  the  prospect  of  its  ennui  would 
hardly  fail  to  choose  it  if  given  a  chance. 
At  any  rate,  dismay  might  result  to  any 
one  who  counted  too  rashly  upon  the  cer 
tainty  of  their  refusal. 

Say  that  some  youth  were  brought  up  in 
absolute  ignorance  of  all  the  bitterness  and 
melancholy  with  which  religion  has  associ 
ated  death.  Let  us  suppose  that  he  had 
grown  to  regard  death  simply  as  a  tender 
peace,  a  blessed  rest  after  toil,  a  slumber 
which  indeed  "knits  up  the  ravell'd  sleave 


Agnosticism.  59 

of  care."  Then  say  that  sudden  tidings 
came  to  him,  at  the  age  of  twenty  or  there 
abouts,  which  entirely  upset  all  his  former 
deductions.  Thus  far,  perhaps,  -  he  had 
seen  a  parent  or  a  sister  die.  (Jain  had 
preceded  dissolution,  making  its  ultimate 
repose  all  the  more  grateful,  and  he  had 
joined  with  others  in  the  relief  that  such 
emancipation  and  exemption  produced. 
But  now,  abruptly,  he  learns  of  the  fright 
ful  things  that  man  has  been  for  many 
years  believing  about  death.  The  ghastli- 
ness  of  Hell,  the  forlornness  of  Purgatory, 
and  the  tedium  of  an  interminable  Heaven 
all  rise  before  him.  Orthodoxy  seizes 
him  by  one  hand,  bigotry  by  the  other, 
and  no  wonder  if  he  recoils  terrified,  dis 
gusted,  from  the  contact  of  each.  It  would 
not  be  strange  if  he  were  to  go  mad  from 
the  shock  of  his  discovery,  provided  he 
became  a  convert  to  any  of  the  creeds  it 
has  laid  bare.  After  years  of  entire  mental 
calm  he  has  been  beset  by  turmoil  and 
vexation.  Agnosticism  is  his  only  refuge, 
end  if  he  takes  it  he  may  there  find  at 
least  a  similitude  of  the  contentment  he 
knew  before. 

Of  course  this  instance  is  only  a  supposi 
titious  one.    But  the  imagination  can  easily 


60  Agnosticism. 

deal  with  it,  and  it  might  be  real  enough 
were  any  human  being  educated  like  the 
individual  whom  I  have  fancied.  Agnos 
ticism  would  sponge  the  slate  clean,  and 
thus  wipe  away  every  past  impression  and 
prejudice.  To  state  that  it  must  replace 
what  it  has  destroyed  is  idle  verbiage,  for 
to  require  that  it  shall  replace  one  super 
stition  by  another  would  mean  that  it 
should  bring  the  recurrence  of  captivity 
instead  of  a  new  and  unique  liberation.  If 
I  tell  my  friend  that  he  has  in  his  pocket 
a  counterfeit  banknote  I  am  not  compelled 
to  give  him  genuine  money  as  the  price  of 
my  news.  The  great  mistake  of  those  who 
condemn  and  oppose  agnosticism  is  their 
stubborn  insistence  that  it  shall  build  some 
sort  of  new  church,  establish  some  sort  of 
new  priesthood.  This  mistake  is  natural 
enough,  and  quite  pardonable  considering 
its  source.  Agnosticism  pretends  to  be 
nothing  in  the  way  of  a  new  religion;  you 
might  as  well  ask  it  to  explain  itself  as  ask 
the  sunshine  that  pierces  a  cloud-swathed 
sky  after  days  of  gloom  and  storm.  It  is 
the  reasoning  faculty  of  humanity  grown 
an  assertion  instead  of  an  abnegation,  a 
sound  instead  of  a  silence,  a  courage  in 
stead  of  a  cowardice.  Such  writers  as  Mr. 


Agnosticism.  61 

Frederic  Harrison,  Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock, 
and  others  of  either  a  sentimental  or  an 
infatuated  turn,  wholly  fail  to  comprehend 
that  the  sense  of  being  free  from  all  codes 
and  restrictions  invented  by  human  credu 
lity  alone,  is  at  once  exhilarant  and  fortify 
ing.  It  may  be  said  that  certain  minds 
cannot  do  without  the  religions  of  churches  ; 
if  so,  there  is  no  objection  to  the  possessors 
of  these  minds  continuing  to  thumb  pray 
er-books.  But  others  of  hardier  mould,  of 
firmer  fibre,  will  prefer  the  one  large 
republic  of  rationalism  to  the  little  mon 
archies  and  duchies  of  orthodoxy.  Profes 
sor  Huxley  has  well  called  this  latter  "  the 
Bourbon  of  thought."  And  he  adds  :  "  It 
learns  not,  neither  can  it  forget;  and 
though  at  present  bewildered  and  afraid  to 
move,  it  is  as  willing  as  ever  to  insist  that 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  contains  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  sound  science, 
and  to  visit  with  such  petty  thunderbolts 
as  its  half-paralyzed  hands  can  hurl  those 
who  refuse  to  degrade  nature  to  the  level 
of  primitive  Judaism." 

We  near  the  birth  of  a  new  century,  and 
it  may  be  true  that  before  the  world  is 
a  hundred  years  older  marvellous  effects 
will  have  accrued  from  the  persistent  and 


62  Agnosticism. 

undaunted  efforts  of  science.  Possibly 
agnosticism  will  then  almost  have  changed 
into  a  certain  kind  of  gnosticism  ;  before 
many  more  centuries  have  elapsed  we  are 
led  to  trust  that  it  will  surely  have  so 
changed.  If  the  denizens  of  Mars  were  i 
actually  signalling  to  us,  as  that  Italian/ 
astronomer  is  reported  not  long  ago  to! 
have  claimed  that  they  are,  and  if  anything! 
like  interplanetary  communication  were 
established  between  Mars  and  ourselves, 
this  event  would  really  be  no  more  extraor 
dinary  than  others  brought  about  by  men 
like  Newton,  Franklin,  Fulton  or  Edison. 
If  our  descendants  master  the  secret  of 
death  and  wring  immortality  from  nature, 
these  acts  will  be  only  analogous  to  what 
man  is  already  doing.  Toward  such  a 
millennial  result  every  loyal  agnostic  will 
have  given  his  share.  /'He  who  has  lifted 
but  a  single  stone  of  it  still  helps  to  build 
the  pyrafnid.^Twhat  a  debt  do  we  owe  to 
the  ancestors  that  freed  us  from  supersti 
tion's  trammelling  tyrannies  !  A  like  debt 
will  our  successors  owe  to  us  in  the  ages 
unborn.  This  realization  must  content  the 
agnostic.  It  is  a  lofty  one,  and  it  is 
chastely  unselfish  as  well.  He  cannot  say 
that  he  has  no  good  cause  for  thanks  ;  he 


/    0  * 

<r  . 


has  been  saved  from  temporizing  and 
makeshift  ;  he  lias  escaped  the  silliness  of 
Theosophy,  "  Christian  Science,"  "  spirit-.*  'J 
ualism,"  and  like  tawdry  lures  to  the  fancy  ^ 
and  the  senses  ;  he  has  stooped  his  lips  to 
the  crystal  waters  of  pure  knowledge  and 
found  there  a  draught  far  wholesomer  and 
more  flavorous  than  any  sacramental  wine 
ever  served  by  foolish  priests  ! 

Agnosticism,  it  might  be  said,  kneels 
before  a  mighty  door,  in  whose  huge  lock 
is  a  massive,  rusted  key.  Year  after  year 
she  bruises  her  hands  trying  to  turn  the 
key  ;  again  and  again  she  has  moved  it  a 
little — but  only  a  little,  always.  She  does 
not  know  what  lies  beyond  the  door  ;  she 
does  not  profess,  she  does  not  even  ask,  to 
know.  But  it  is  the  door  of  human  life, 
and  beyond  it  is  infinity.  Though  her 
hands  are  crimson  with  blood  and  their 
flesh  is  torn  to  the  bone,  she  will  never 
desist  from  her  task.  She  may  faint  for  a 
time,  but  she  will  not  die,  for  her  other 
name  b  Truth-Seeker,  and  that  means 
imperishability.  And  now  and  then,  while 
she  strives  with  all  her  power  to  turn  the 
monstrous  key,  her  teeth  will  clench  them 
selves  and  she  will  defiantly  murmur  :  "  Not 
if  it  takes  ten  thousand  vears  will  I  ever 


64  Agnosticism. 

cease  to  struggle,  until  the  key  has  been 
swung  round  in  its  lock  and  the  door  has 
been  flung  open!" 

She  does  not  grow  old  with  the  years, 
either,  this  obstinate  Agnosticism.  Time 
brings  her  strength  instead  of  weakness, 
and  though  she  is  very  old  she  is  yet^i. 
younger  to-day  than  in  the  period  of 
Lucretius.  Will  she  fail  in  her  supreme 
design  ?  It  may  be.  But  no  matter  ;  she 
will  have  striven  ! 


THE  ARROGANCE  OF  OPTIMISM. 


NOT  very  long  ago  the  present  writer  had 
occasion  to  examine  a  criticism  in  the  New 
York  Times  which  dealt  with  a  recent  novel 
by  Mr.  Edgar  Saltus.  This  novel,  as  many 
readers  will  remember,  had  attracted  at 
tention  because  of  its  chiselled  phrases 
and  diamond-like  epigram.  It  was  not% 
however,  a  book  which  might  be  expected 
to  please  everybody,  and  perhaps  its  young 
author  was  far  from  anticipating  that  it 
would.  But  possibly,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  was  not  prepared  to  hear,  as  the  acid 
newspaper  critic  soon  informed  him,  that 
he  had  been  presenting  "  in  an  ugly  bou 
quet  the  poison-weeds  that  Schopenhauer 
and  Von  Hartmann  cultivated."  And  then, 
almost  immediately  afterward,  this  impla 
cable  person  went  on  to  declare  that  Mr. 
Saltus  was  "  imbued  with  the  most  horri 
ble  of  all  human  dementia,"  and  that  he 

65 


66          TJie  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

had  written  a  work  which,  "as  a  romance, 
drips  pessimism." 

Such  assertions  as  these  are  beginning  to 
have  a  very  old  ring.  It  is  now  a  good,  ap 
preciable  length  of  time  since  the  genuine 
agnostic  was  successfully  pulverized  by  the 
wrathful  pulpiteer.  He  is  not  pulverized 
any  more  ;  occasionally  he  is  shrieked  at 
after  the  style  of  Mr.  Talmage,  whose  well- 
known  energy  in  this  capacity  has  long  ago 
become  for  thousands  an  amusement  as 
purely  national  as  that  of  base-ball  or  roll 
er-skating.  Still,  the  agnostic  and  the  pes 
simist  are  not  by  any  means  necessarily  one. 
The  agnostic  may  be,  and  not  infrequently 
is,  an  optimist  of  sunny  and  even  roseate 
outlook.  He  will  tell  you  that  because  the 
roots  of  all  earthly  progress  are  wrapped 
in  obscurity,  and  because  the  goal  toward 
which  the  mighty  steps  of  evolution  ad 
vance  is  veiled  by  unknowableness,  that  is 
no  reason  for  despair  of  the  "  one  far-off  di 
vine  event"  which  Tennyson's  verses  have 
prophesied  so  beautifully.  He  may  even 
inform  you  of  how  his  own  religious  uncer 
tainty  and  insecurity  do  not  forbid  him  to 
hope,  trust,  and  at  times  feel  almost  confi 
dent  that  the  entire  vast  system  of  the  uni 
verse  is  governed  by  an  intelligence  wholly 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         67 

beneficent  and  gracious — one  whose  appar 
ently  cruel  deeds  are  disguised  mercies 
and  whose  seeming  enmity  hides  a  love 
which  our  future  immortality  shall  both 
comprehend  and  applaud.  The  modern 
agnostic  has  a  logical  and  consistent  right 
to  this  attitude  if  he  can  sincerely  assume 
it.  But  he  has  not  the  right  to  treat  with 
arrogance  the  opposite  views  aud  opinions 
of  the  pessimist,  nor  is  he  often  found  in 
the  employment  of  any  such  mischievous 
and  ill-advised  tactics.  All  that  he  leaves 
for  the  religionists,  the  orthodox  believers, 
the  zealots  of  a  "  revealed  "  faith.  And  it 
must  be  admitted  that  even  in  this  age  of 
toleration  the  poor  pessimist  has  a  rather 
unpopular  and  dreary  time  of  it.  A  rat  set 
upon  by  a  terrier  might  expect  about  as 
much  sympathy  from  unmerciful  bystand 
ers  as  he  receives  from  the  majority  of  his 
contemporaries.  A  great  many  sensible 
men  dismiss  his  creed  with  a  sneer  as  silly 
in  the  extreme  ;  it  is  no  less  a  triviality  to 
them  than  theosophy  would  be  to  Mr.  Hux 
ley  or  spiritualism  to  Mr.  -Lecky.  A  great 
many  good  and  sensible  women  turn  from 
it  with  a  shudder  as  "hopeless,"  "despair 
ing,"  and  "sinful."  An  enormous  number 
of  ignorant  or  half-educated  people,  if  they 


68  The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

regard  it  at  all,  do  so  with  contemptuous 
aversion.  Then  there  are  those  of  all  classes 
who  insist  that  the  pessimist  does  not  be 
lieve  what  he  professes  to  believe — that  he 
is  attitudinizing,  posing,  and  that  every 
body  ought  to  faire  son  possible  in  the  way 
of  frowning  him  out  of  such  folly.  These 
methods  of  treatment,  when  considered 
without  prejudice  or  bias  of  any  sort,  are 
best  defined  by  a  single  word — arrogance. 
They  savor  of  precisely  the  same  spirit  as 
that  which  was  manifested,  only  a  few  years 
ago,  toward  everybody  who  presumed  to 
doubt  the  inspiration  of  Scripture.  Nowa 
days  a  man  can  be  an  agnostic  with  some 
degree  of  mundane  comfort,  but  the  lot  of 
the  pessimist  has  not  yet  been  similarly 
favored.  I  have  observed  that  his  great 
est  enemy,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Saltus, 
is  the  newspaper.  This  exults  in  having 
its  fling  at  the  writer  or  thinker  who  dares 
to  "look  on  the  dark  sides  of  things"  or 
to  "  don  green  spectacles  " — both  of  which 
idioms  flow  from  the  editorialist's  pen  with 
a  glibness  that  bespeaks  long  practice  in 
their  use.  It  is  an  easy  matter,  surely,  to 
write  down  anything  in  this  way,  from  a 
political  measure  to  a  pot  of  Recamier 
Cream,  from  an  execution  by  electricity  to 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         69 

a  new  Giibert-and-Sullivan  opera.  Very 
probably,  too,  the  current  newspaper  has 
one  of  its  innumerable  self-preservative 
"  policies"  to  uphold,  since  it  would  never 
do  for  the  average  citizen  so  sharply  to 
realize  the  complete  nothingness  of  things 
that  he  cared  no  longer  for  his  morning 
and  evening  journal.  And  yet  the  point- 
of-view  taken  in  every  cited  instance  is  an 
arrogant  one.  Expediency  may  prompt, 
very  often,  the  crushing  blows  aimed  at  a 
gloomy  system  of  philosophy;  for  there  are 
many  people  in  the  world  foolish  enough  to 
doubt  whether  the  naked  truth  should  ever 
be  looked  on  by  mortality  provided  its 
limbs  are  graceless  and  its  tinges  repelling. 
But  by  far  the  larger  part  of  these  antago 
nists  whom  I  have  mentioned  consider 
themselves  in  duty  bound  to  discounte 
nance  uncheerful  tenets.  It  is  right  and 
godly  that  they  should  do  so  ;  it  would  be 
arrant  wickedness  to  behave  otherwise 
than  as  the  wagers  of  a  vigorous  crusade 
against  such  vicious  notions.  "  Bah  !  Stuff 
and  nonsense  !"  cries  irritated  society. 
"  This  world  not  a  pleasant  place  to  live 
in  ?  Mankind  had  far  better  not  have  been 
born?  Go,  preach  your  rubbish  to  the 
'cranks  '  that  are  not  above  listening  to  it!" 


7O          Tke  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

All  of  which  has,  when  coming  from  the 
lips  of  society,  a  truly  impressive  sound. 
That  is,  at  first.  But  a  little  later  we  might 
find  ourselves  reflecting  that  society  has  had 
a  fashion  of  being  obstinately  unconvinced, 
as  regarded  the  greatest  and  most  vital 
questions,  for  a  period  of  several  thousand 
years.  All  history,  it  might  be  stated,  is 
only  a  vast  record  of  the  mistakes  made 
by  the  masses.  Naturally  those  preachers 
who  succeed  in  getting  the  hugest  multi 
tudes  to  hear  them  are  not  merely  such  as 
thrill  their  listeners  with  promises  of  an 
abundant  and  beatific  immortality,  but  who 
embellish  the  vistas  of  that  fortunate  pros 
pect  with  a  most  lavish  charm  of  ornamen 
tation.  It  might  be  said  of  the  big  public, 
indeed,  that  such  persons  as  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Talmage  have  spoiled  them  for  ordinary 
theological  treatment  :  they  are  no  longer 
satisfied  unless  their  immortality  is  served 
them,  so  to  speak,  with  a  thick  layer  of 
icing  and  a  good  many  plums.  Here  is  the 
sort  of  pungent  encouragement  they  need, 
and  the  paragraphs  containing  it  are  quoted 
from  a  sermon  delivered  by  the  gentleman 
already  named  : 

"Friends,  the  exit  from  this  world,  or  death, 
if  yon  please  to  call  if,  to  tJtc  Christian  is  glo- 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.          71 

nous  expectation.  It  is  demonstration.  It  is 
illumination.  It  is  sunburst.  It  is  the  opening 
of  all  the  windows.  It  is  shutting  up  the  cate 
chism  of  doubt,  and  the  unrolling  of  all  the  scrolls 
of  positive  and  accurate  information.  .  .  .  It  is 
the  last  mystery  taken  out  of  botany  and  astrono 
my  and  geology.  O,  will  it  not  be  grand  to  have 
all  questions  answered !  .  .  .  The  Bible  intimates 
that  we  will  talk  with  Jesus  in  heaven  just 
as  a  brother  talks  with  a  brother.  Now,  what 
will  you  ask  him  first?  .  .  .  I  shall  first  want 
to  hear  the  tragedy  of  his  last  hours,  and  then 
Lukes  account  of  the  crucifixion  and  then  Mark's 
account  of  the  crucifixion  and  Johns  account 
of  the  crucifixion  will  be  nothing,  while  from 
the  living  lips  of  Christ  the  story  shall  be  told 
of  the  gloom  that  fell,  and  the  devils  that  arose. 
.  .  .  All  heaven  will  stop  to  listen  until  the  story 
is  done,  and  every  harp  will  be  put  down,  and 
every  lip  closed,  and  all  eyes  fixed  on  the  Divine 
narrator,  until  the  story  is  done  y  and  then,  at 
the  tap  of  the  baton,  the  eternal  orchestra  will 
rouse  up;  finger  on  string  of  harp,  and  lips  to 
the  mouth  of  trumpet,  there  shall  roll  forth 
the  oratorio  of  the  Messiah." 

If  there  were  any  refined  or  cultivated 
people  who  took  this  kind  of  flamboyant 
materialism  at  all  seriously,  they  might  be 
pardoned  for  feeling  that  an  eternity  of 


7  2          The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

such  proceedings  would  prove  quite  the 
reverse  of  celestial.  But  that  people  with 
no  refinement  or  cultivation  should  dis 
cover  latent  i;  comfort"  in  talk  of  so  en 
tirely  whimsical  a  character  only  serves  to 
illustrate  what  a  particularly  small  minor 
ity  of  votes  the  pessimistic  person  could 
ever  be  able  to  command.  On  every  side 
he  would  seem  to  have  the  inherent  £•#/>// <& 
CiKitr  of  humanity  against  him.  This  con 
dition  of  affairs,  let  it  once  more  be  pointed 
out,  clearly  exhibits  the  arrogance  of  op 
timism.  What  that  tendency  wills  to  be 
lieve,  it  does  believe.  It  refuses  to  think 
that  life  is  not  worth  living,  and  it  thus  re 
fuses  in  the  face  of  myriad  facts  indicated 
by  the  rigid  and  unerring  finger  of  science. 
No  assertion  is  made  that  this  arrogance  is 
one  just  now  to  be  avoided  or  lived  down  ; 
it  may,  in  fact,  be  inseparable  from  the  race 
as  thus  far  evolved,  and  constitute  that  very 
"will  to  live"  without  which,  as  Schopen 
hauer  asserts,  there  would  be  no  organic  or 
even  inorganic  existence  whatever.  But 
viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  him  who 
opposes  it  determinedly,  it  is  arrogance, 
nevertheless.  For  while  the  pessimist  can 
give  countless  proofs  that  life  is  a  curse,  a 
snare,  a  bewilderment,  a  disappointment, 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         73 

an  affliction,  the  optimist  can  give  no  cor 
respondingly  valid  proofs  to  the  contrary. 
No  design  is  now  proposed  either  to  endorse 
or  condemn  optimism,  but  merely  to  define 
it.  The  optimist  may  say,  and  veraciously 
enough,  that  under  given  conditions  of 
happiness  or  contentment  he  holds  life  to 
be  ampiy  worth  living.  But  the  pessimist 
refuses  to  deal  solely  with  those  conditions. 
He  insists  upon  looking  at  life  as  alto 
gether  an  impersonal,  un- individual  affair. 
He  weighs  its  aggregate  of  unsolicited 
misery  against  its  aggregate  of  reaped  and 
garnered  joy,  and  concludes  that  the  former 
far  outbalances  the  latter. 

The  pessimist,  in  his  purely  unemotional 
role  of  scientist,  can  no  more  be  despised 
than  any  other  dispassionate  taker  of  sta 
tistics.  If  lie  shouts  anathemas  against  the 
optimist  he  at  once  ranks  himself  among 
the  great  throng  of  inexact  and  therefore 
untrustworthy  thinkers.  He  must  either 
be  rational  and  credible  or  he  swiftly  be 
comes  absurd.  He  has  already  been  called 
absurd  by  legions  of  alert  detractors.  Can 
he  prove  that  such  vilifiers  are  menda 
cious  ?  What  are  his  real  renseignements  ? 
In  which  avenue  of  reputable  thought  or 


74         The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

philosophy  can  he  find  his  hardy  allies  of 
argument  ? 

He  will  answer  you,  if  he  be  a  pessimist 
of  unblemished  and  invulnerable  honesty, 
that  he  finds  every  known  aid  in  the  vivid, 
austere  rank-and-fi!e  of  human  experience. 
"  I  am  not  a  believer  in  any  *  revealed  '  re 
ligion,"  he  will  tell  you.  "  I  set  my  Bible 
and  my  Koran  on  the  same  shelf  of  my  li 
brary,  and  if  the  slightest  patrician  differ 
ence  exists  between  their  separate  bindings, 
that  is  a  question  which  entirely  refers  it 
self  to  the  orthodoxy  or  the  liberalism  of 
my  bookseller.  I  observe  life  with  an  at 
tentive  but  unbiassed  gaze." 

"And  you  see  in  life,"  instantly  responds 
the  adverse  auditor,  "  innumerable  pleas 
ures,  benefits,  blessings,  mercies.  You 
cannot  deny  this.  You  say  that  life  is  not 
worth  living,  and  yet  you,  this  particular 
pessimist  whom  I  now  address,*  are  rich 
in  worldly  goods,  unassailed  as  to  reputa 
tion,  possessed  of  a  wife  who  not  merely 
adores  you  but  who  piques  your  vanity 
enjoyably  by  being  the  favorite  of  all  whom 
she  meets.  You  have  children  who  are 

*  A  prosperous  member  of  society  is  here  inten 
tionally  specified. 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         75 

straight  and  tall  and  beautiful,  and  who 
look  on  the  heaviest  task  as  merest  leis 
ure  provided  you  approve  its  onus  and  its 
discipline.  Your  friends  group  about  you 
and  esteem  you.  You  breakfast  with  dis 
cretion  ;  you  sup  with  sanity.  You  have 
learned  long  ago  the  wisdom  of  abstemi 
ousness;  you  are  the  despair  of  your  family 
physician,  whose  fat  income  of  dollars  can 
secure  no  augment  from  your  exasperat 
ing  prudence.  The  worn  and  hackneyed 
interrogatory  of  cui  bono  has  no  meaning 
for  your  ears  ;  you  live  without  a  mi:>for- 
tune  ;  your  very  sleep  is  undisturbed  by 
even  so  much  as  an  agreeable  dream. 
Your  exemption  from  an  hour,  a  minute 
of  distemper,  weakness,  indisposition,  is 
not  the  least  of  all  these  favors.  Can 
you  truthfully  tell  me  that  simply  with 
such  complete  freedom  from  all  physi 
cal  aches  and  pains  you  do  not  congratu 
late  yourself  on  being  the  possessor  of  a 
human  existence  ?  Can  you  truthfully  as 
sert  that  you  would  rather  not  have  been  at 
all  than  be  as  you  are  ?  Nullity,  non-exist 
ence,  is,  I  admit,  inconceivable  to  human 
consciousness  in  a  subjective  way.  If  you 
had  never  been  born  you  would  never  have 
known  even  the  peaceful  serenity  of  not 


76          The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

having  breathed  ;  you  would  simply  have 
been  (if  one  may  presume  to  say  it)  a 
minus  quantity  in  the  enormous  equation 
of  our  terrestrial  algebra.  But  would  you 
have  preferred  extinction  to  your  present 
sojourn  upon  the  planet  named  Earth  ? 
Are  not  the  loves  you  have  felt  worth  lov 
ing?  Is  not  the  music  you  have  heard 
worth  hearing  ?  Are  not  the  paintings  and 
sculptures  you  have  seen  worth  seeing? 
Have  not  the  numberless  complexities  of 
human  character  with  which  circumstance 
has  associated  you  been  worth  exploring 
and  scrutinizing?  Plainly,  candidly,  as 
man  to  man,  do  you  not  think  the  whole 
problem  of  life  has  been  one  which  you 
would  have  chosen  to  confront,  provided 
you  had  been  a  naked  spirit  on  the  borders 
between  chaos  and  order,  with  volition 
enough  to  decide  between  annihilation  or 
creation,  consciousness  or  cerebral  blank  ?" 
'•  I  grant  all  that  you  say,"  answers  the 
pessimist  thus  directly  addressed.  '•  I  am 
a  happy  husband,  a  happy  father  ;  I  am 
the  possessor  of  wealth  ;  all  the  pleasures 
that  environment  may  bestow  upon  me  are 
mine.  My  heart  beats  with  an  equal  stroke  ; 
my  digestion  waits  on  appetite  ;  I  have  my 
book-shelves  lined  with  the  masterpieces  in 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.          77 

literature  of  the  immortal  dead  :  I  cannot 
complain  that  I  have  been  visited  with  a 
single  ill  of  the  many  to  which  flesh  is  heir. 
And  yet  I  am  miserable.  I  do  not  accept 
life ;  it  has  been  forced  upon  me.  I  go  to 
my  bed,  I  awake  from  my  repose,  with  one 
immitigable  sensation — despair." 

"But  why  do  you  despair?"  comes  the 
query. 

"  Why  ?  Can  you  ask  me  ?  I  am  under 
a  rigid  death-sentence.  It  is  true  that  all 
my  human  encompassment  shares  the  same 
bitter  doom  of  threat.  But  that  is  no  com 
fort  to  me.  If  I  had  been  a  condemned 
prisoner  waiting  for  execution  it  would 
afford  me  no  solace  that  hundreds  of  others 
near  me  had  been  similarly  treated.  Im 
mortality?  I  know  nothing  about  it.  You 
tell  me  that  a  certain  book,  written  centu 
ries  ago,  abounds  in  hope  and  assurance  of 
it.  But  I  reject  the  evidence  of  that  book. 
I  cannot  admit  that  it  is  divinely  inspired. 
I  know  that  a  man  named  Polycarp  said 
that  it  was,  and  another  man  named  Euse- 
bius,  and  another  man  named  Irenaeus. 
But  I  reject  the  evidence  of  these  witnesses. 
They  were  born  in  an  age  that  was  bale- 
fully  fertile  in  the  most  odious  of  supersti 
tions.  I  have  only  the  frailest  of  proofs 


78         The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

that  even  such  a  man  as  Jesus  Christ  ever 
existed,  But  if  he  did  exist  I  can  gain  no 
consolation  from  legendary  statement  that 
he  was  the  son  of  a  benign  overruling 
deity/)  You  speak  of  the  happiness  that  is 
afforded  me  by  the  society  of  my  wife.  It 
is  true  that  I  adure  her — that  every  linea 
ment  of  her  visage,  every  curve  of  her  form, 
is  unspeakably  dear  to  me.  And  yet  I  have 
never  known  the  untrammelled  delight  of 
loving  her  for  the  sweet,  winsome  woman 
she  is.  My  adoration  for  her  has  ever  been 
mingled  with  terror.  I  mean  the  terror  of" 
losing  her.  You,  an  optimist,  would  de 
clare  this  an  'unhealthy'  mood.  You 
would  affirm  it  to  be  the  '  borrowing  of 
trouble.'  Easy  phrases,  my  friend  !  And 
yet  I  have  lain  awake  at  night  with  the  be 
loved  form  of  my  wife  near  me,  and  shud 
dered  at  the  thought  of  my  awful  solitude 
if  death  should  rid  me  of  her  priceless 
company  !  You  remonstrate  with  me.  you 
of  the  sunny  mind,  the  imperishable  op 
timism.  'Why,'  you  ask,  'should  I  dream 
of  horrors  where  none  are  to  be  found  ?' 
Yet  pause,  my  genial-souled  friend.  A 
month  ago  my  next-door  neighbor  would 
stop  me  in  the  street  to  clasp  my  hand 
with  eager  amity.  He  was  the  picture 


TJie  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         79 

of  ruggedness  then — only  a  month  ago ! 
In  his  cheek  health  blushed,  in  his  eye 
health  kindled.  His  wife,  who  worshipped 
him,  had  said  to  me  :  'I  am  so  happy  be 
cause  my  husband  has  no  ailment,  because 
he  is  unharmed  by  the  least  bodily  ill.' 
...Yesterday  I  saw  that  wife.  Her  attire 
was  one  blackness  of  mourning.  Her 
lip  trembled  as  I  took  her  hand.  Life 
to  her  had  suddenly  become  a  torture. 
Why  should  it  not  so  become  to  me,  at  any 
hour,  at  any  instant?  I  fold  my  arms  all 
the  closer  about  my  own  wife  in  realizing 
the  possibility  of  a  like  calamity  ;  but  my 
love  is  none  the  less  mingled  with  fear. 
What  should  I  do  if  she  were  torn  from 
me  ?  Could  I  take  up  again  the  burden  of 
living?  No,  no  ;  as  I  watch  her  live  face  it 
seems  impossible  that  she  should  be  made 
mute  and  irresponsive  to  this  devotion  I 
hoard  for  her,  inexhaustible,  the  sweet 
miserly  accrument  of  conjugal  years  !  And 
my  children  !  How  I  love  them  !  They  are 
stje ;  they  are  even  more  ;  the  guileless 
egotism  of  fatherhood  invests  their  treas 
ured  vitality.  I  press  my  lips  to  my  daugh 
ter's  lips,  to  the  lips  of  my  son,  with  a 
passion  different  from  yet  even  more  sacred 
than  the  ecstasy  of  manhood's  earlv  love. 


So         Tkc  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

And  yet  they,  my  children,  are  menaced 
by  the  same  dreadful  threat  !  Yesterday 
Agnes  told  me  that  her  heart  pulsated  too 
rapidly  ;  I  placed  my  hand  upon  her  bosom 
with  a  sense  of  unspeakable  anxiety. 
Yesterday  Harold  said  to  me,  '  Father,  I 
have  a  headache.'  My  touch  upon  his 
brow  seemed  so  cold  to  myself  that  I  feared 
lest  he  might  shrink  from  it.  '  Idle  self- 
tormentings  !'  cry  you,  my  optimist  friend. 
And  yet  we  both  know  that  Nature  is 
pitiless.  My  love  for  my  offspring  is  not  so 
large — immeasurable  though  I  feel  it  ! — 
as  the  deadly  ambuscaded  forces  of  ever- 
watchful,  ever-treacherous  death!  My  Ag 
nes,  my  Harold,  are  well ;  my  worriment 
was  nonsense.  Oh,  yes,  I  admit  it.. .but 
a  coffin  was  lately  carried  out  of  a  house 
in  the  next  street  to  mine,  and  in  it  lay  a 
youth  of  Harold's  age,  smitten  by  pneu 
monia.  A  few  streets  further  away  there 
was  another  funeral  last  week  ;  a  young 
girl,  just  the  age  of  my  Agnes,  had  died  of 
diphtheria.  Oh,  it  is  all  mere  *  croaking' 
to  speak  as  I  speak  now.  But  what  may  a 
human  soul  do  with  all  its  love  if  it  cannot 
be  the  guardian  and  warder  of  that  love's 
perpetuity?  I  tell  myself  that  I  should  go 
mad  if  I  lost  my  wife  or  my  son  or  my 


The  A  rrogance  of  Optimism.         8 1 

daughter.  And  yet  others,  on  every  side 
of  me,  survive  disasters  as  keen  and  strin 
gent.  Perhaps  I  would  survive  them,  too 
...I  don't  know... I  only  know  that  I  would 
infinitely  have  preferred  not  being  born 
into  this  world  at  all  than  being  born 
into  it  with  the  dear,  sweet  weight  and 
burden  of  what  I  now  must  bear  !  Are 
the  joy  and  satisfaction  of  possessing  kin 
dred  as  treasured  as  my  own  commensu 
rate  with  the  stern  and  persevering  fear  of 
their  possible  loss  ?  I  answer,  No.  And  I 
answer  it  not  only  from  the  depths  of  my 
intellect  but  from  the  depths  of  my  love  !" 
How  can  the  optimist  answer  a  plaint 
like  this  ?  He  cannot  rationally  assert  that 
the  pessimist  puts  forward  one  illogical 
claim.  He  may  laugh  with  as  blithe  a 
mirth  as  Hebe's  at  the  fabled  banquets  of 
Jove.  He  may  point  to  the  sun  and  revel 
in  its  golden  ardors.  But  he  must  accede 
that  night  follows,  howsoever  the  jubilance 
and  splendor  of  day  may  tarry.  The  arro 
gance  of  optimism  must  at  certain  times 
make  itself  felt  to  him,  even  though  he  de 
nies  that  it  has  been  exerted.  He,  like  the 
pessimist,  has  loved  ones.  The  stealthy 
and  irreversible  advance  of  age  cannot  be 
disputed  by  him.  He  does  not  grow  old 


82         The  A  rrogance  of  Optimism. 

half  so  gracefully  as  he  professes  to  do. 
His  hair  does  not  turn  into  the  sarcastic 
silver  of  decay,  his  limbs  do  not  secrete  a 
subtle  chalk  in  their  joints,  his  forehead 
does  not  develop  the  immedicable  wrinkles 
and  crow's-feet,  his  teeth  do  not  turn  ache- 
haunted  and  loose,  without  his  knowledge 
and  sure  comprehension  of  such  piteous 
disintegration.  He  may  "philosophize"; 
he  may  don  a  bold  front  against  the  grad 
ual,  loitering  advance  of  the  sure  destroyer  ; 
and  yet  in  his  inmost  heart  he  recognizes 
and  bitterly  appreciates  the  slow,  terrible 
change. 

There  is  some  uplifting  force,  affirms  the 
disciple  of  Schopenhauer,  which  enables 
us  to  eat  our  daily  meals  (provided  we  are 
among  the  limited  though  fortunate  num 
ber  of  those  who  can  procure  them)  and 
bear  a  comparatively  stout  heart  along  with 
us  during  the  brief  passage  between  cradle 
and  grave.  What,  you  ask,  is  that  peculiar 
undemonstrated  force  ?  "  It  is,"  the  Scho- 
penhauerite  will  answer  you,  "  *  the  will  to 
live,'  the  undeniable  yet  mysterious  influ 
ence  that  equally  causes  a  violet  to  spring 
up  by  the  side  of  a  brook  and  Saturn  to 
wheel  his  awful  globe  about  the  sun." 

"Not  so,"  affirms  the   Christian,   ''it   is 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         83 

God,  conscious  and  supremely  intelligent, 
ordering  His  universe  with  unrivalled  wis 
dom  and  ability."  The  Christian  and  op 
timist  are,  in  this  case,  supposed  to  be  one 
and  the  same,  though  many  Christians  ex 
ist  who  are  thorough  pessimists  at  heart, 
fighting  for  dogma  with  an  invincible  stub 
bornness,  yet  ruling  their  lives  by  principles 
and  doctrines  which  the  Galilean  would 
have  held  forlornly  foolish.  But  the  real 
pessimist  will  not  for  a  moment  hear  that 
the  least  proof  of  intelligence  is  to  be  found 
among  the  workings  of  Nature.  "  My  great 
reason,"  he  will  tell  you,  "  for  holding  ex 
istence  to  be  a  curse  and  a  bore,  is  my  firm 
conviction  that  we  are,  all  of  us,  the  mere 
puppets  of  some  sightless  and  wholly  mind 
less  Process,  which  moves  us,  not  whither 
soever  it  will,  but  whithersoever  it  must. 
You  assure  me  that  above  all  things  there 
is  a  presiding  and  prevailing  Consciousness. 
But  I  have  no  such  certainty,  and  the  creed 
to  which  I  cling  is  in  thousands  of  ways 
more  tenable  than  yours.  You  affect  to 
despise  me  in  the  arrogance  of  your  optim 
ism,  and  you  hurl  sentences  of  Scripture  at 
me,  such  as  '  The  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart. 
There  is  no  God.'  But  I  am  not  to  be  dis 
missed  half  so  easily  as  that.  My  doubts 


^    j        x<X*-v    -  ~7?j 


84         The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

will  return  to  haunt  you  at  many  future  hours 
of  your  life,  even  though  you  now  profess 
so  valiantly  to  despise  them.  For  this 
faith  of  yours  in  the  complete  mercy  of  your 
God  I  fail  to  find  half  as  thorough  as  you 
yourself  would  have  me  think  it.  The 
arms  of  optimists  like  you  are  not  torn  away 
any  the  more  easily,  I  have  observed,  from 
the  forms  of  their  beloved  dead  because  of 
that  'corruptible'  which  'must  put  on  in- 
corruption'  or  that  'house  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens.'  Your  sobs, 
at  times  like  these,  echo  none  the  less 
drearily  than  those  wrung  from  the  lips  of 
the  unbelieving.  You  say  that  the  intense 
physical  alteration  brought  about  by  death 
is  sufficient  to  create  in  you  this  horror, 
this  agony.  But  I  cannot  at  all  agree  with 
you  that  it  would  be  thus  sufficient,  pro 
vided  your  faith  were  as  strong  as  you  rep 
resent.  That  is  a  faith,  you  yourself  say, 
which  passeth  understanding  ;  it  is  rooted 
in  emotions  and  longings  ;  its  promises  to 
you  are  copious  and  priceless.  But  I  can 
not  reconcile  your  trust  with  your  tears, 
your  heavenly  confidence  with  your  very 
earthly  lamentation.  What  if  this  friend 
w'lo  has  just  breathed  his  last  had  come  to 
you  some  day  and  said:  'I  am  going  into 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.          85 

a  beautiful  country,  where  I  shall  be  ex 
quisitely  happy  and  whither  you  shall  one 
day  follow  me  '  ?  Would  you  fall  on  his 
neck  and  tremble  with  suffering?  Would 
you  seek  to  detain  him  from  that  delightful 
sojourn  by  every  means  in  your  power?... 
Come,  now  ;  there  is  either  a  grave  flaw  in 
your  well-jointed,  oft-vaunted  armor  of 
faith,  or  you  have  deceived  both  yourself 
and  others  with  regard  to  its  resistance,  its 
durability.  For  it  fails  to  stand  the  one 
needed  test.  It  is  impotent  in  the  face  of 
that  very  calamity  which  it  boasts  of  under 
rating.  At  the  door  of  the  tomb  it  falters 
and  loses  courage.  If  I  had  it  I  make  bold  to 
say  that  I  would  see  joy  in  the  dead  man's 
obsequies,  and  resent  as  irrelevant  the 
mournful  emblem  on  his  door-bell.  You 
are  an  optimist,  yet  you  have  not  the  due 
and  consistent  courage  of  one  when  it  comes 
to  a  question  of  bearing  that  very  ordeal 
which  you  rebuke  me  for  calling  crucially 
severe....  Now,  let  us  see  how  far  this 
same  alleged  courage  will  serve  you  with 
relation  to  the  laws  of  living — those  laws, 
remember,  which  you  name  the  product  of 
a  supreme  Benignity,  ever  watchful  for 
your  welfare.  How  do  you  really  oppose 
the  unpleasant  stress  of  poverty  ?  By  ar- 


86          The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

dent  prayer  ?  I  do  not  deny  that  you  may 
pray  devoutly,  but  do  you  not  also  take 
pains  to  work  with  industry  as  well,  and  to 
exert  all  your  faculties  of  unsullied  trades- 
manship  toward  the  end  of  gaining  a  com 
fortable  livelihood  ?  By  prayer,  too,  you 
may  seek  to  rid  yourself  of  countless  other 
ills  ;  but  if  you  should  to-morrow  discover 
that  your  cellar  was  filled  with  stagnant 
water,  would  you  not  instantly  resort  to 
the  services  of  a  competent  drainer  ?  If  an 
earthquake  should  suddenly  shake  your 
house,  would  you  drop  on  your  knees,  or 
would  you  rush  with  expedition  from  the 
doorway  ?  If  your  child  fell  ill  to-day  of 
scarlet-fever,  would  prayer  or  medicine  be 
first  in  your  parental  thought  ?  And  yet 
you  would  denounce  as  unpardonably 
'godless'  the  man  who  should  presume  to 
speak  with  you  of  the  inefficacy  of  prayer. 
The  arrogance  of  optimism  would  swiftly 
rise  in  revolt  against  his  theories.  I  do  not, 
be  it  borne  in  mind,  deny  the  assertiveness 
of  my  own  pessimism.  And  yet  I  seldom 
get  even  the  chance  of  exploiting  it.  The 
large  mass  of  '  civilization  '  to  which  you 
belong  will  rarely  accord  me  that  chance. 
You  are  always  crying  at  me  from  your 
pulpits,  your  church-meetings,  your  popular 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.          87 

assemblages  of  many  sorts.  When  I  point 
to  John  Stuart  Mill's  essay  On  Nature  you 
shudder,  and  marvel  how  I  can  be  so  '  ma 
terialistic.'  And  yet,  practically,  you  treat 
Nature  as  the  same  implacable  foe  that  I 
treat  her.  If  a  sharp  wind  rushes  from  the 
north,  you  button  your  great-coat  over  your 
chest.  If  you  read  in  your  sympathizing 
newspapers  that  several  wretched  Italian 
immigrants  have  been  detained  at  quaran 
tine,  reeking  with  the  microbes  of  cholera, 
you  have  dismal  dreams  of  a  horrified 
Broadway  and  a  demoralized  Fifth  Avenue. 
You  are,  in  other  words,  as  much  of  an  ac 
tive,  operative  pessimist  as  I  am,  and  the 
only  positive  difference  between  us  is  that 
you  orally  proclaim  an  optimism  which  I 
will  not  proclaim  at  all,  since  I  cannot  live 
up  to  it,  nor  take  pleasure  in  flagellating 
my  fellow-creatures  with  its  arrogance — 
its  arrogance,  on  which  I  am  never  tired,  in 
my  present  arraignment  of  you,  aggrievedly 
to  harp." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  a  so-called 
*'  healthy"  state  of  the  human  mind  general 
ly,  if  not  always,  is  allied  to  one  of  stupidity. 
If  we  think  at  all  of  whence  we  have  come, 
whither  we  are  going,  and  wherefore  we 
are  here,  we  inevitably  recoil  from  that 


88  The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

trinity  of  mysteries  ;  and  to  let  our  thoughts 
dwell  habitually  upon  any  subject  invested 
with  so  much  gloomy  dissatisfaction  and 
unrest  is  of  course  an  occupation  highly 
injurious  to  happiness.  There  can  be  no 
doubt,  either,  that  idiots  and  animals,  when 
freed  from  bodily  pain,  are  perfectly  happy. 
Still,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  denied 
that  contentment  is  incompatible  with 
brains,  for  the  simple  reason  that  very 
many  persons  are  as  firm-nerved  and  as 
fearless  in  their  contemplation  of  le  grand 
peut-etre  as  Napoleon  was  on  the  eve  of 
a  battle.  But  there  is  no  excuse  for 
beings  thus  endowed  with  perennial  forti 
tude  to  cast  scorn  upon  others  of  weaker 
mould  ;  for  if  the  manifold  ills  of  life  keenly 
alarm  me  and  do  not  disconcert  my  neigh 
bor,  the  point  as  to  whether  my  agitation 
or  his  imperturbability  is  most  in  order 
must  be  solely  determined  by  the  inimical 
degree  of  the  assailant  agency  ;  and  only 
fools  will  persist  in  saying  that  life  is  not 
pregnant  with  ills.  Wise  men  may  offset 
these  ills  with  blessings,  but  the  latter  still 
remain  convertible  at  even  a  moment's 
notice  into  their  distinct  reverse,  while 
many  of  the  former,  such  as  old  age,  death, 
sundering  of  attached  souls,  bereavement, 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         89 


the  failure  of  eyesight  or  hearing,  are  with 
out  cure,  consolation,  alleviation.  Nor  do 
the  Latin  words,  Pulvis  et  umbra  sumus, 
thoroughly  convey  the  surpassing  melan 
choly  of  human  life.  Ours  is  not  merely 
a  world  \vhere  we  die.  It  is  one  in  which 
heredity  exerts  an  increasing  and  inex 
orable  mastery.  The  edicts  of  heredity, 
expressed  in  Biblical  phrase  by  "  the  sins  of 
the  fathers  .  .  visited  upon  the  children," 
are  too  often  as  tyrannous  as  any  that  a 
Nero  or  a  Caligula  could  devise.  Our  asy 
lums  and  hospitals  make  harshly  plain  to 
us  the  unmerited  woes  that  are  visited  upon 
generations  of  mortals.  There  we  may  see 
diseases  transmitted  by  progenitors  to  their 
descendants  which  entail  years  of  torment 
that  the  worst  despot  history  can  produce 
would  have  been  loath  to  visit  upon  his 
guiltless  victims.  Adults  and  little  children 
alike  quiver  beneath  the  lash  of  these  de 
plorable  inflictions.  Inherited  rheumatic 
gout  will  twist  and  distort  the  limbs  of  an 
infant  from  its  birth  until  it  has  reached 
nine  or  ten  years,  and  then  kill  it  in  the  end, 
ruthlessly  and  with  perhaps  only  a  slight 
moribund  interval  of  surcease  from  exces 
sive  pain.  Inherited  cancer  lingeringly 
slays  both  saint  and  sinner  with  frigid  dis- 


90          The  A  rroganct'  of  Optimism. 

regard  of  either  desert  or  innocence.  The 
babe  is  born  to  live  a  week,  a  month,  a  year, 
and  then  perish  with  pangs  that  make  us 
thankful  its  racked  and  persecuted  little 
body  could  cease  from  breathing  when  it 
did.  The  middle-aged  are  flung  upon  beds 
of  misery  by  some  malady  which  has  been 
slowly,  insidiously  developing  within  them 
while  they  labored  for  the  peaceful  compe 
tence  which  now  at  last  they  have  just  at 
tained,  and  no  more.  The  old  are  stricken 
by  the  same  hideous  ailment  which  de 
stroyed  their  fathers  or  mothers  at  a  similar 
age.  (Heredity  has,  in  its  demoniac  quiver, 
arrows  tipped  with  a  poison  more  baneful 
than  any  of  which  the  Borgias  ever 
dreamed.  / 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  optimist  may  toss 
his  head  as  merrily  and  dissentiently  as  he 
will,  but  that  very  "spiritual"  part  of  us 
whose  divine  origin  he  is  so  fond  of  extol 
ling  as  indestructible,  has  its  throes  to  en 
dure,  for  which  no  merciful  anaesthetic  has 
yet  been  invented  by  psychologist  or  meta 
physician.  To  love  and  to  be  loved  in  this 
life  may  present  ineffable  enjoyment.  But 
to  love  and  to  be  loved  are  forever  forming 
the  saddest  o>inon-sequiturs.  It  is  not  always, 
by  any  means,  that  the  intervention  of  caste 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         91 

and  wealth  tears  two  lovers  apart  from  one 
another.  Nature,  no  less  than  man,  has  her 
Montague  and  her  Capulet,  her  Abelard 
and  her  Heloise.  A  man  adores,  worships 
a  certain  woman,  and  finds  her  cold  to  him 
as  marble.  A  woman  is  stirred  by  the  same 
unquenchable  preferment,  and  is  met  by 
the  same  stolid  indifference.  Such  passions 
as  these,  thwarted  in  their  very  births,  are 
at  once  the  marvel  and  the  despair  of  all 
whom  they  besiege.  They  are  like  birds 
with  bleeding  and  shattered  wings  ;  they 
are  powerless  to  fly,  and  can  only  crawl 
along  with  their  smarting  burdens.  George 
Eliot  (whose  morality  and  charity  as  a 
writer  are  immense,  yet  whose  pessimism 
is  no  less  a  fact  to  all  who  have  studied  her 
faithfully)  touches,  in  "  Daniel  Deronda,'1 
on  this  wide,  eternal  reality  of  the  lover's 
unrequited  affection.  Women  hide  it  more 
than  men — and  suffer  more  on  this  account. 
Men  have  larger  means  for  seeking  and 
obtaining  forgetfulness.  Perhaps  very  few 
of  either  sex  fail  ultimately  to  heal  their 
aching  wounds.  But  when  such  love  asf  \ 
theirs  has  become  simply  memory,  the  sting 
that  succeeds  its  disappearance  is  some 
times  a  persistent,  if  not  a  poignant  one^ 
How  could  we  ever  so  vehemently  have 


• 


92  The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

loved  and  yet  now  feel  this  torpid  callous 
ness  in  a  heart  that  was  once  so  tremu 
lously  sensitive  ?  Our  love,  when  we  were 
thralled  by  it,  made  us  feel  a  sacred  kin 
ship  with  the  stars  ;  we  looked  into  the  red 
bosoms  of  roses  and  the  balmy  chalices  of 
lilies,  with  new  eyes  for  their  richness  and 
chastity  ;  our  most  prosaic  tasks  took  a 
halcyon  edge  upon  their  very  commonness 
and  dulness,  like  ordinary  objects  when  seen 
through  prisms.  We  pressed  our  friends' 
hands  more  warmly  than  had  been  our  wont, 
because  friendship  was  allied  with  love,  and 
love  was  a  divine  melody  that  every  wind 
sang  to  us,  every  sunbeam  laughed  to  us. 
...But,  descried  by  all  that  old,  delicious 
exaltation,  we  ask  ourselves  what  its  frenzy 
could  have  meant  or  been  ?  How  may  we 
any  longer  call  it  ideal  and  poetic  when  it 
has  passed  away  from  us  with  no  more 
ceremony  in  its  quick  evanishment  than  if 
it  were  an  impulse  of  hunger  or  a  prefer 
ence  of  claret  over  champagne  ?  Never  do 
we  seem  more  clearly  to  ourselves  the  tran 
sient  shadows  of  a  void  and  profitless  dream 
than  then,  in  such  disillusionized  and 
doubly  solitary  hours  !  Shakespeare,  held 
by  those  highest  in  critical  authority  as 
the  greatest  poet  that  mankind  has  thus 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism          93 

far  been  called  upon  to  admire,  is  the 
author  of  many  a  pessimistic  verse.  In 
deed,  it  is  the  belief  of  that  fearless  and 
wonderful  reasoner,  Robert  G.  Ingersoll 
(himself  a  profound  Shakespearian  scholar), 
that  the  author  of  "  Hamlet"  was  a  con 
firmed  agnostic  and  freethinker.  Opponents 
of  this  theory  will  eagerly  seize  upon  the 
dramatic  form  of  Shakespeare's  work  as 
ample  justification  of  every  "  impious"  line 
he  ever  wrote.  But  how  about  the  "  Son 
nets  "?  Do  they  not  literally  overflow  with 
thought  such  as  this  : 

"  Since  sweets  and  beauties  do  themselves  forsake, 
And  die  as  fast  as  they  see  others  grow; 
And  nothing  'gainst  lime's  scythe  can  make  defence.," 

Or  again,  these  meaning  verses  : 

"  Devouring  Time,  blunt  thou  the  lion's  paws, 
And  make  the  earth  devour  her  own  sweet  brood; 
Pluck  the  keen  teeth  from  the  fierce  tiger's  jaws 
And  burn  the  long-liv'd  phoenix  in  her  blood...; 
But  I  forbid  thee  one  most  heinous  crime : 
O  carve  not  with  thy  hours  my  love's  fair  brow..." 

Or  again  : 

"  When  I  consider  everything  that  grows 

Holds  in  perfection  but  a  little  moment, 
That  this  huge  state  presenteth  naught  but  shows 
Whereon  the  stars  in  secret  influence  comment..." 


94          The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 
Or  again  : 

"  Roses  have  thorns  and  silver  fountains  mud; 

Clouds  and  eclipses  stain  both  moon  and  sun, 
And  loathsome  canker  lives  in  sweetest  bud..." 

Or,  still  once  again  : 

"Since  brass,  nor  stone,  nor  earth,  nor  boundless  sea, 

But  sad  mortality  o'ersvvays  their  power, 
How  with  this  rage  shall  beauty  hold  a  plea, 
Whose  action  is  no  stronger  than  a  flower?" 

Or,  still  once  again,  and  the  last  time, 
though  many  more  similar  passages  of 
gloom  and  despondency  could  be  cited, 
let  us  now  reproduce  the  whole  of  a  son 
net  which  has  long  been  famed  as  one  of 
the  brightest  jewels  in  this  very  remark 
able  collection.  A  more  plaintive  moan  of 
despairing  revolt  against  the  entire  earthly 
scheme  was  never  uttered  by  any  poet,  liv 
ing  or  dead. 

"  Tired  with  all  these,  for  restful  death  I  cry, — 
As,  to  behold  desert  a  beggar  born, 
And  needy  nothing  trSmm'd  in  jollity, 
And  purest  faith  unhappily  forsworn. 
And  gilded  honor  shamefully  misplac'd, 
And  maiden  virtue  rudely  strumpeted, 
And  right  protection  wrongfully  disgrac'd, 
And  strength  by  limping  sway  disabled, 
And  art  made  tongue-tied  by  authority, 
And  folly  (doctor-like)  controlling  skill, 


O  *£4rv~    •&*?! 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         95 

And  simple  truth  miscall'd  simplicity. 

And  captive  good  attending  captain  ill  : 

Tired  with  ail  these,  from  these  would  I  be  gone, 
Save  that,  to  die,  I  leave  my  love  alone." 

Such  denunciations  of  life,  vented  by 
Shakespeare,  are  in  the  poet's  own  voice, 
and  not  that  of  any  portrayed  dramatic 
character.  The  poet  here  speaks  through 
his  individual  lips,  and  not  those  of  any 
malign  creation  like  lago  or  Macbeth. 
"  This  little  life  is  rounded  by  a  sleep,"  and 
"  All  the  world's  a  stage  "  are  but  two,  as  it 
were,  among  the  multitudinous  black  pearls 
of  thought  which  help  to  make  up  that 
other  truly  royal  chaplet.  What  would  the 
modern  newspaper  say  to  ideas  like  these, 
if  so  illustrious  an  authority  had  not  uttered 
them  ?  Here  are  some  words  of  condemna 
tion  against  pessimism,  taken  a  day  or  two 
ago  from  a  New  York  daily  journal  of 
prominence  and  power : 

"An  author  who  depicts  life  in  dreary 
colors  is  sure  to  exert  a  most  undesirable 
influence  over  many  of  his  readers.  The 
force  of  this  applies  to  all  kinds  of  writing. 
Whether  a  man  pens  an  epic  poem  or  a 
newspaper  editorial,  the  tone  of  his  philos 
ophy  is  sure  to  leave  its  ultimate  effect  on 
those  who  peruse  his  words.  Is  it  not  then 


c)6          The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

incumbent  upon  an  author  to  shun,  as  far 
as  possible,  that  mocking  pessimism  which 
in  our  day  serves  to  cover  a  vast  amount  of 
mental  inability?  One  word  in  literature 
by  an  optimistic  thinker  is  worth  ten  thou 
sand  by  a  grumbler,  even  though  the  latter 
may  adorn  his  thoughts  with  the  brightest 
gems  of  wit  and  poesy." 

The  above  is  a  most  salient  example  of 
the  arrogance  of  optimism.  This  little 
group  of  sentences  may  be  said  to  contain 
the  same  condescension  and  patronage 
which  mark  uncounted  pages  of  our  current 
newspapers.  It  is  always  the  same  a  priori 
course  of  mingled  laudation  and  damnation 
Why  is  one  word  of  optimism  worth  ten 
thousand  of  pessimism  ?  If  neither  manner 
of  surveying  life  can  be  set  aside  as  in 
nately  false,  why  should  this  be  upheld  and 
applauded  while  that  is  decreed  to  ''cover 
a  vast  amount  of  mental  inability"?  Do 
the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare,  that  mourn  so 
eloquently  and  untiringly  '•  the  wreckful 
siege  of  battering  days,"  perpetrate  such  a 
flimsy  concealment  ?  Was  George  Eliot  a 
"grumbler''  because  she  wrote  that  heart 
breaking  story  of  "  Middlemarch,"  where 
destiny  rewards  hardly  a  single  noble  intent 
or  disinterested  yearning  ?  Did  the  shrewd 


I 

The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.         97 

lips  of  Voltaire  lie  when  they  reminded  us 
that  '  we  never  live,  but  are  always  in  expec 
tation  of  living '?  If,  as  Montaigne  some 
where  axiomates,  'ignorance  is  the  mother 
of  all  evils,'  why  should  it  exert  "  an  unde 
sirable  influence  "  to  depict  life  in  "dreary 
colors,"  when  those  dreary  colors  are  all 
borrowed  from  the  sure  shadows  cast  by 
every-day  occurrences  ?  Have  the  stimu 
lating  prophecies  and  warrants  of  Christi 
anity  prevented  a  million  cases  of  madness, 
a  million  acts  of  suicide  ?  Allowing  all  the 
beauty,  allurement,  pastime,  lofty  pursuit, 
glorious  intoxication  of  life  to  be  credible 
and  tangible,  why  should  its  ugliness,  re 
pulsion,  disappointment,  failure,  overthrow, 
receive  but  furtive  glances,  as  though  fabie 
had  first  begotten  and  fatuity  afterward 
exaggerated  them  ?  Is  the  optimistic  fer 
mentation  brought  about  in  unenlightened 
minds  by  sermons  like  those  of  Dr.  Tal- 
mage  and  others  equal  to  a  tranquil  facing 
of  verities — a  square  and  honest  confront 
ing  of  the  whole  sweet-and-bitter,  dark-and- 
bright  enigma,  and  a  frank  subsequent  con 
fession  that  both  our  laughter  and  ourgroans 
are  the  products  of  an  inscrutable,  abysmal, 
tantalizing  source  ?  If  I  concede  your 
right  to  say  that  the  Mediterranean  breaks 


98          The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

with  voluptuous  cadences  on  the  shores  of 
the  Riviera,  why  should  you  refuse  me  my 
right  to  answer  that  the  cyclone  is  death- 
fully  raging  in  the  wilds  of  Nebraska  ? 
But  the  arrogance  of  optimism  does  refuse 
me  this  right.  It  chides  me  and  frowns 
upon  rne  when  I  maintain  that  Emerson's 
amiable  treatise  concerning  Nature  is  but 
the  complement  of  John  Stuart  Mill's  dolo 
rous  one,  and  that  while  each  may  be  in 
its  way  undeniable,  the  first  only  leaves 
off  where  the  last  begins.  If  optimism 
could  disprove  the  avowals  of  pessimism  it 
would  be  quite  another  affair  with  her. 
But  she  cannot ;  she  can  only  berate  and 
abuse  them.  And  yet  the  professedly  buoy 
ant  members  of  society  are  the  very  ones 
who  tell  you  that  they  have  had  "  oh,  such 
a  wretched  attack  of  the  blues,"  or  that 
they  have  heard  Brown's  book  is  doleful, 
and  therefore  do  not  want  to  read  it,  since 
there  is  such  an  enormous  amount  of  sadness  in 
life  that  one  cannot  escape,  whether  he  will  or 
no.  (it  is  usually  the  person  impartially 
observant  of  life  in  all  her  phases  who  has 
the  best  time  as  years  crowd  upon  him"!)  The 
present  article  offers  no  plea  for  pessimism, 
no  recommendation  of  its  counsels,  no  en 
dorsement  of  its  assumptions  and  prem- 


Tkc  Arrogance  of  Optimism.        99 

ises.  But  a  plea  certainly  is  offered  for  the 
respectful  consideration  of  a  doctrine  so 
much  of  which  is  irrefutable  truth.  If  it 
be  not  too  commonplace,  I  would  suggest 
that  the  kind  of  truth  we  men  and  women 
want  most  of  all — the  kind  to  live  by  and 
to  die  by — is  midway  between  these  two 
strenuous  extremes.  The  crown  of  a  per 
fect  education  might  be  defined  as  a  perfect 
freedom  from  prejudice.  It  is  extraordi 
nary  how  much  of  a  peculiar  sort  of  preju 
dice  the  optimist  of  to-day  fosters.  It 
would  seem  as  if  he  were  only  arrogant 
with  living  pessimists,  and  forgivingly 
overlooked  the  sins  of  all  others.  We  oc 
casionally  find  him  allowing  greatness  to 
Voltaire  ;  he  has  been  known  to  discredit 
the  story  that  Thomas  Paine  died  in  mis 
eries  of  repentance,  imploring  the  pardon 
of  heaven  for  his  blasphemies.  But  not  to 
faire  des  examples  with  too  much  prolixity, 
we  note  that  the  optimist  abides  unruffled 
in  his  contemplation  of  what  are  perhaps 
the  most  daring  pessimisms  ever  put  into 
verse.  I  mean  those  of  Omsr  Khayyam, 
the  Persian  astronomer-poet.  When,  about 
thirty  years  ago,  the  late  Mr.  Edward  Fitz 
gerald  rendered  these  astonishing  stanzas 
into  admirable  English  verse,  it  was  curious 


ioo        The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

to  observe  the  popularity  they  at  once  se 
cured.  Both  here  and  in  England  optimism 
was  never  weary  of  praising  them.  It  was 
so  safe  to  do  so  ;  Omar  had  been  born  seven 
hundred  years  ago  ;  there  was  nothing  sac 
rilegious  in  hearing  the  voice  of  material 
ism  at  that  distance  away.  And  so  the  op 
timist  would  smile  to  himself  as  he  read  of 
the  old  poet's  vie  orageuse  and  the  epicurean 
conclusions  that  he  had  drawn  from  it.  That 
book,  to  half  the  optimists  in  the  land,  was 
like  a  "jolly  bank-holiday  "  to  a  lot  of  Lon 
don  clerks.  They  interchanged  shocked 
looks  as  they  read,  but  with  none  the  less 
avidity  they  did  read — 

"What,  without  asking,  hither  hurried  whence? 
And,  without  asking,  whither  hurried  hence? 

O  many  a  cup  of  this  forbidden  wine 
Must  drown  the  memory  of  that  insolence  !" 

Of  course,  they  argued,  if  any  modern 
human  being,  such  as  Col.  Ingersoll,  should 
speak  in  the  style  of  the  following  quat 
rain,  it  would  be  outrageous  to  the  last 
degree.  But  then  it  sounded  so  much  less 
abominable  (it  sounded  so  fascinatingly 
quaint,  in  fact  !)  when  you  heard  a  voice 
pealing  forth  from  a  seven-hundred-year- 
old  past  with  such  words  as  these  : 


The  A  rrogancc  of  Opt  i  mis  m.       \  o  I 

"  Oh,  Thou,  who  didst  with  pitfall  and  with  gin 
Beset  the  road  I  was  to  wander  in, 

Thou  wilt  not  with  predestined  evil  round 
Enmesh,  and  then  impute  my  fall  to  sin  !" 

Still,  with  all  the  dilettante  laxity  which 
the  optimist  is  known  to  have  permitted 
himself  regarding  the  perusal  of  Omar 
Khayyam's  Rubaiytit,  it  is  difficult  to  un 
derstand  how  he  could  quite  have  steadied 
his  nervous  system  sufficiently  for  a  placid 
consideration  of  the  following — perhaps 
more  scathingly  militant  against  accepted 
codes  than  anything  in  the  whole  most  un 
conventional  poem  : 

"Oh,  Thou,  who  man  of  baser  earth  didst  make, 
And  even  with  paradise  devise  the  snake, 

For  all  the  sin  wherewith  the  face  of  man 
Is  blackened,  man's  forgiveness  give — and  take!" 

I  recall  that,  when  Omar  Khayyam's  little 
book  was  first  published  in  this  country,  a 
certain  gentleman  who  had  been  one  of  its 
earliest  and  most  enthusiastic  readers  im 
parted  to  me  his  private  suspicions  concern 
ing  its  actual  authorship  :  "  I  feel  con 
vinced,"  he  said,  "  that  this  '  astronomer- 
poet  of  Persia  '  is  a  graceful  myth,  invented 
by  the  Rev.  Edward  Fitzgerald  himself,  in 
order  to  conceal  his  own  athestic  tenden 
cies."  I  could  not  help  thinking  this  a 


IO2         T/ie  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 

rather  singular  course  and  plan  by  which 
a  clergyman  should  seek  to  win  his  baton 
viare'chal&'s  a  poet,  and  subsequent  develop 
ments  proved  my  friend's  hypothesis  to 
have  been  a  mistaken  one.  But  I  have 
often  afterward  ruminated  upon  the  gen 
eral  social  result  of  a  discovery  that  the  Ru- 
baiyat  had  really  been  the  work  of  a  Chat- 
terton-like  literary  impostor.  Ah,  what  re 
cantations  and  retractions  would  have 
poured  from  the  lips  of  our  mortified  op 
timists,  if  they  had  been  called  upon  to  re 
gard  all  these  acrid  and  sinister  sayings  as 
the  outcome  of  a  living,  breathing  pessimist, 
and  not  of  one  that  had  been  romantically 
and  picturesquely  dead  for  seven  long  cen 
turies  !  It  is  doubtful  if  Mr.  Elihu  Vedder 
would  have  presumed  to  make  those  very 
imaginative  and  captivating  illustrations  of 
his,  which  now  accompany  at  least  one 
precious  edition  of  the  work,  and  which, 
moreover,  in  all  their  bitter  and  often  ter 
rible  beauty,  are  treasured  by  optimists  of 
every  sect,  from  Roman  Catholic  to  Uni 
tarian. 

The  arrogance  of  optimism  will  probably 
cease  to  exert  itself  when  it  has  received 
from  evolution  a  disclosure  of  its  own  hy 
pocrisy.  For  very  few  of  us  can  live  at 


TJie  Arrogance  of  Optimism.       103 

all  without  being  in  a  measure  pessim 
ists.  "  Theologians  have  exausted  in 
genuity,"  says  Ingersoll,  ''  in  finding  ex 
cuses  for  God."  But  this  is  not  so  bold, 
after  all,  as  the  remark  of  the  Frenchman 
who  said  that  the  sole  excuse  for  the  deity 
was  "  qitil  nexiste  pas."  Still,  whether  we 
revolt  or  submit,  it  is  very  apt  to  be  one 
and  the  same  with  us  :  we  are  what  George 
Eliot  has  somewhere  called  "  yoked  crea 
tures  with  private  opinions."  None  of  us 
can  afford  to  sneer  at  him  who  looks  more 
sombrely  than-  we  do  at  the  unutterable 
wretchedness  of  the  world,  or  at  him  who 
distrusts  more  thoroughly  than  ourselves 
the  sinful  and  selfish  races  that  people  it. 
Advancement  in  knowledge  will  bring  pes 
simist  and  optimist  nearer  together.  If 
there  are  any  who  refuse  sunshine  its  ra 
diance,  flowers  their  bloom  and  odor,  hu 
man  love  its  tenderness  and  majesty,  pity 
its  tears  and  almsgiving,  virtue  its  cleanli 
ness  and  candor,  justice  its  righteousness 
and  nobility, — if  there  continue  any  so  par 
tisan  and  feeble  of  judgment  as  this,  then 
optimism  may  turn  didactic  to  her  heart's 
content,  and  with  an  unassailable  authority. 
In  the  meantime  let  her  use  against  the 
"  fallacies  "  of  her  foe  other  weapons  than 


IO4        The  Arrogance  of  Optimism. 


those  of  idle  invective.  ^  Let  her  imitate  the 
calm  methods  of  science,  who  condemns 
nothing,  sneers  at  nothing,  but  accepts, 
investigates,  analyzes,  utilizes  alLJ  You 
cannot  make  me  think  malaria,  lightning, 
earthquake,  rattlesnakes,  treason,  malice, 
falsehood,  meanness  are  less  of  the  curses 
I  know  them,  because  you  cry  out  at  me 
that  I  am  a  malicious  fool,  and  endanger 
the  welfare  of  life  and  society  by  noting 
too  closely  such  uncanny  developments. 
Neither  can  I  make  you  think  the  warble  of 
birds,  the  murmur  of  streams,  the  limpid- 
ness  of  heaven,  the  flocculence  and  purity 
of  a  summer  cloud,  the  exuberance  and  del 
icacy  of  a  rose,  the  mirth  and  innocence  of 
childhood,  the  dignity  and  strength  of  hon 
est  manhood,  the  rapture  of  a  maiden's  first 
love,  the  sanctity  of  a  mother's  protective 
caress,  are  slighter  blessings  than  I  know 
them,  because  you  cry  out  at  me  that  I  am 
a  mawkish  sentimentalist,  and  endanger 
the  welfare  of  life  and  society  by  dwelling 
with  too  much  emphasis  upon  these  espe 
cially  agreeable  phenomena.  Some  day, 
when  their  present  constituents  long  have 
been  dust,  these  two  inimical  factions  of 
intellectuality,  optimism  and  pessimism, 
will  meet  on  a  common  ground — that  of 
mutual  concession  and  conciliation.  Some 


The  Arrogance  of  Optimism.       105 

day  ?  And  yet  who  shall  dare  to  dream 
what  far  grander  results  that  future  day 
may  accomplish  ?  Science  may  then  have 
scaled  heights  which  we  now  hold  insu 
perable  for  even  her  dauntless  foot.  The 
whole  order  of  seeing  and  believing  may 
be  changed.  What  now  seems  to  us  finality, 
may  then  have  become  the  rudimentary 
commonplace  of  physics.  If  the  twentieth 
century  marches  along  at  the  same  superb 
pace  as  that  of  the  nineteenth,  there  is  no 
prophesying — there  is  hardly  any  fanciful 
guessing,  evea — what  invaluable  certitudes 
respecting  life,  death  and  the  human  soul 
miiy  be  reached  !  Nor  is  there  anything 
millennial,  Utopian,  impracticable  in  such  a 
deduction.  Not  so  very  long  ago  the  mere 
mention  of  an  era  in  which  instantaneous 
submarine  communication  between  Europe 
and  America  was  attainable,  would  have 
been  scoffed  at  as  the  wildest  of  fanatical 
visions.  It  may  be  that  in  the  twentieth  or 
twenty-first  century  pessimism  and  optim 
ism  will  be  so  welded  together  into  a  wider 
conception  of  what  is  now  deemed  insolu 
ble  that  the  '  arrogance  '  which  this  pro 
test  has  attempted  to  exhibit  will  have 
grown  as  inconsiderable  an  issue  as  many 
a  present  optimist,  after  reading  thus  far, 
will  feel  disposed  to  pronounce  it. 


THE  BROWNING  CRAZE. 

CRITICAL  surprise  has  been  more  than 
once  expressed,  of  late,  that  in  an  age  so 
militant  against  the  development  of  the 
poetic  spirit,  a  single  man  should  find  him 
self  (and  that,  too,  at  an  advanced  period 
of  his  life)  surrounded,  not  to  say  besieged, 
by  hosts  of  ardent  admirers.  Everybody 
has  now  heard  of  the  "  Browning  Craze," 
and  it  is  quite  probable  that  many  had 
heard  of  it  while  Mr.  Robert  Browning 
himself  was  hardly  more  to  them  than  a 
meaningless  name.  And  yet  to  the  major 
ity  of  literary  men  and  women  in  England 
and  America  this  cult  has  long  been  a 
familiar  one.  Not  until  perhaps  a  decade 
ago  did  it  begin  to  assume  its  present  spa 
cious  proportions.  I  remember  meeting 
devout  Browningites  at  least  twenty  years 
ago,  when  almost  a  boy.  And  as  boys  will, 
when  their  thoughts  turn  toward  the  letters 
of  their  time  and  land,  I  soon  felt  an  ambi 
tious  craving  to  graduate  into  a  Brown- 
ingite  myself. 

106 


The  Browning  Craze.  107 

Such  a  worship  then  possessed  so  fasci 
nating  an  element  of  rarity  !  It  was  so  at 
tractive  a  role  for  one  to  give  a  compas 
sionate  lifting  of  the  brows  and  say,  "  No, 
really  ?"  when  somebody  declared  himself 
quite  unable  to  understand  the  obscure 
author  of  "Sordello."  You  knew  perfectly 
well  that  any  number  of  his  lines  were 
Hindostanee  to  you,  and  yet  you  made  use 
of  your  patronizing  pity  and  your  "No, 
really  ?"  all  the  same.  There  is  safety  in  the 
assertion  that  Mr.  Browning  has  driven  more 
pedantic  youngsters  to  unblushing  false 
hood  than  any  other  writer  in  the  language. 
All  sorts  of  roads  lead  to  fame,  and  his, 
oddly  indeed,  has  been  the  very  oblique  one 
of  an  unpopularity  which  bore  superficial 
signs  that  it  was  preferred  and  courted. 
But  a  deeper  glance  assures  the  unbiassed 
observer  that  this  is  by  no  means  fact.  Al 
most  every  poem  of  the  many  which  he  has 
written  bears  evidence  that  the  attitudina- 
rian  has  been  at  work,  that  the  conscious 
trickster  has  again  and  again  superseded  the 
conscientious  artist,  and  that  the  notoriety 
we  too  often  give  caprice  and  whimsicality 
has  been  aimed  after  with  a  studied  zeal. 
It  is  in  this  way  that  Mr.  Browning  inces 
santly  betrays  what  might  be  called  the 


io8  The  Browning  Craze. 

frivolity  inseparable  from  his  temperament. 
Take,  for  example,  in  "Men  and  Women," 
his  most  coherent  collection  of  dramatic 
and  lyrical  poetry,  the  profusion  of  rank 
affectations  mingled  with  their  hardy  op- 
posites.  Indeed,  this  one  book,  which  is 
by  far  the  most  serene,  lucid  and  endur 
able  that  he  has  ever  given  to  the  world, 
contains  much  that  art  cannot  fail  to  find 
hideous,  even  repulsive.  Scarcely  a  poem 
is  exempt  from  some  shocking  flaw.  In 
"  A  Lover's  Quarrel,"  which  possesses  good 
human  touches,  if  the  verse  does  jerk  like 
a  sled  on  a  road  filmed  meagrely  with  snow, 
we  read  such  rhymed  crudity  as 

See  the  eye,  by  a  fly's  foot  blurred — 

Ear,  when  a  straw  is  heard 
Scratch  the  brain's  coat  of  curd  ! 

But  effects  of  unpardonable  bathos  like 
this  abound  in  "  Men  and  Women."  The 
present  essay  would  exceed  all  allowable 
scope  if  half  of  them  were  quoted.  Poems 
which  have  received  rapturous  praise  fairly 
teem  with  them.  In  "  The  Statue  and  the 
Bust"  (a  piece  of  work  so  often  declared 
faultless)  there  are  obscurities  of  construc 
tion  for  which  a  school-boy  would  be  rated 
by  his  teacher.  "  Master  Hugues  of  Saxe- 


The  Browning  Craze.  109 

Gotha"  racks  and  tortures  the  most  ordi 
nary  ear.  "  Childe  Roland  to  the  Dark 
Tower  Came"  (another  object  of  devout 
veneration)  has  little  about  it  that  is  met 
rically  slipshod,  but  affects  an  impartial 
reader,  after  finishing  it,  as  a  lyric  literally 
torn  from  an  unwilling  talent  ;  its  very 
rhymes  have  a  forced,  factitious  queerness, 
and  its  abrupt  ending  seems  to  exclaim, 
"  Look  at  my  wonderful  suggestiveness  of 
allegory  ! "  And  we  look,  if  our  eyes  are 
not  bloodshot  with  the  "  Browning  Craze," 
only  to  conclude  that  the  entire  poem  is  on 
such  mystical  stilts  as  to  transcend  the 
reach  of  all  sensible  interpretation.  "  Pop 
ularity,"  which  endeavors  to  laud  the  su 
periority  of  genius  over  mere  facile  aptitude, 
ends  with  two  stanzas  regarding  u  Hobbs, 
Nobbs,  Stokes,  and  Nokes,"  which  few  liv 
ing  men  of  taste  would  have  cared  to  print 
at  all,  and  none  except  their  creator  would 
have  cared  to  offer  his  public  as  poetry. 
"Old  Pictures  in  Florence"  repeatedly 
massacres  what  should  be  a  mellifluous 
anapaestic  measure,  and  leaves  you  as  tired 
of  its  eccentric  attitudinizing  as  if  you  had 
been  button-holed  by  some  loquacious 
rhapsodist  in  one  of  the  Arno-fronting 
streets. 


no  The  Browning  Craze.- 

But  it  would  be  idle,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  deny  "  Men  and  Women"  both  poems 
and  passages  of  poems  glowing  with  merit. 
We  find  there  "  Evelyn  Hope,"  a  bit  of  pas 
sion  worth  careful  heed,  though  overrated 
by  its  lovers  because  so  massively  self- 
satisfied  in  its  transcendentalism.  We  find 
"  Bishop  Blougram's  Apology,"  a  brilliant 
study  of  a  narrow,  glib,  specious-tongued 
prelate,  and  interesting  if  on  no  other 
ground  than  its  dramatic  exposition  of  a 
meretricious  moralist.  We  find  the  tender 
and  pathetic  "  Andrea  del  Sarto,"  whose 
sole  objection  is  the  mannered  and  inhar 
monious  blank  verse  which  Mr.  Browning 
always  employs.  We  find  the  fervid  little 
"Love  among  the  Ruins,"  and  wish  its 
author,  so  often  insolent  in  his  defiance  of 
art,  had  chosen  to  sing  many  more  times 
like  that  for  the  delight  of  folk  unborn. 
We  find  "Saul,"  burning  with  eloquence 
and  yet  perfectly  intelligible,  notwithstand 
ing  its  cloying  pietism.  We  find  "In  a 
Balcony,"  perhaps  the  best  piece  of  drama 
Mr.  Browning  has  ever  written.  We  find 
"The  Last  Ride  Together,"  an  ardent  epi 
sode  of  love-making,  but  lyrically  spoiled 
by  its  far-fetched  subtleties  of  simile  and 
illustration.  We  find  "Any  Wife  to  Any 


The  Browning  Craze.  1 1 1 

Husband,"  which  to  read  over  ten  times 
very  patiently  and  studiously  is  to  con 
vince  us  that  it  is  fine — and  what  more  of 
critical  irony  could  be  heaped  on  a  poem 
than  that?  We  find  "Two  in  the  Cam- 
pagna,"  which  begins  exquisitely  and  gets 
labored  and  befogged  toward  the  end.  We 
find  "A  Grammarian's  Funeral,"  which 
makes  the  blood  beat  quicker,  in  parts,  and 
in  parts  lamentably  cools  it.  We  find  "A 
Toccata  of  Galuppi's,"  which  gives  us  a 
laugh  or  two  as  excellent  Italian  comedy. 
And  lastly  we  find  "  Fra  Lippo  Lippi," 
winsome,  sweet,  and  a  poem  which  Tenny 
son  might  have  told  to  us  in  verse  as  en 
chanting  as  that  in  which  he  has  embalmed 
"Tithonus." 

It  has  been  the  writer's  deliberate  purpose 
to  deal  first  with  "Men  and  Women,"  for 
this  book,  in  its  entirety,  faults  and  virtues 
both  included,  will  most  probably  mark  the 
uncrumbling  corner-stone  of  Mr.  Brown 
ing's  future  tame.  Before  this  he  had  writ 
ten  a  very  sane  and  splendid  poem  called 
"  How  they  Brought  the  Good  News  from 
Ghent  to  Aix."  It  is  so  fine  a  piece  of 
work,  indeed,  that  I  can  easily  imagine  his 
worshippers  despising  it.  It  is  no  nut  to 
crack ;  it  shows  what  an  artist  its  parent 


1 12  The  Browning  Craze. 

might  have  been.  Published  originally  in 
the  same  volume,  if  I  mistake  not,  was 
"  My  Last  Duchess,"  a  brief  enough  thing, 
which  has  attained  an  extraordinary  repu 
tation  for  no  apparent  cause.  It  has  the 
chute  de  phrase  of  a  cruel'  man  speaking 
heartlessly  about  a  wife  whom  his  neglect 
killed.  But,  except  for  the  mild  shudder 
it  awakens,  it  is  in  no  sense  noteworthy, 
and  the  verse  drags  and  hobbles  with  so 
much  sluggishness  that  no  one  save  the 
"professional  reader"  (a  great  friend  of 
Mr.  Browning's,  because  elocution  helps 
the  latter's  frequent  disjointed  and  staccato 
technics)  can  ever  succeed  in  rendering  it 
rightly.  Among  the  earlier  "  Dramatic 
Lyrics"  must  be  remembered  "The  Pied 
Piper  of  Hamelin,"  one  of  the  few  English 
poems  that  have  achieved  a  deserving  pop 
ularity  among  the  masses.  It  is  a  child's 
poem,  and  therefore  its  occasional  bizarre 
falsetto  may  be  pardoned.  Not  so  "The 
Flight  of  the  Duchess,"  however,  in  which 
a  charming  and  most  spiritual  tale  is  told 
somewhat  after  the  style  of  an  Ingoldsby 
Legend  or  Bab  Ballad.  It  is  filled  with 
such  rhymes  as  "  tintacks"  and  "syntax," 
"stir-up"  and  "syrup,"  "news  of  her,"  and 
"  Lucifer,"  and  many  others  equally  un- 


The  Browning  Craze.  1 1 3 

suited  to  a  history  at  once  so  serious  and 
so  exalted.  Here  we  are  confronted  with 
that  deliberated  oddity  which  might  be 
termed  Mr.  Browning's  most  irritating 
fault,  as  it  certainly  is  his  least  honest  one. 
We  see  that  he  has  planned  all  these  fire 
cracker  surprises  of  diction  ;  they  bear 
slight  resemblance  to  that  "  rough  power" 
by  which  his  artistic  laziness  has  so  often 
been  misnamed.  For  there  is  a  certain 
class  of  critics  (and,  I  regret  to  add,  a  large 
one)  who  only  need  the  evidence  of  an 
author's  bad  rhymes,  haphazard  rhythms 
and  defective  constructions  in  order  to  dis 
cover  that  he  fairly  bristles  with  "  rough 
power."  Le  mot  juste,  the  polished  and  ac 
curate  utterance,  is  in  severe  disrepute 
with  these  persons.  It  has  been  they  who 
for  years  have  flung  their  jibes  at  the 
unrivalled  perfection  of  Lord  Tennyson's 
verse.  Apparently,  as  they  love  to  put  it, 
the  latter  had  not  power  because  it  was 
not  "  rough."  He  was  mincing  because 
he  never  slurred  a  line  ;  he  lacked  the 
higher  kind  of  emotion  because  he  had 
patiently  chiselled  his  work  into  a  dignity 
above  the  frenzies  of  Byron  or  the  hysteria 
of  Shelley.  I  sometimes  wonder,  for  my 
own  part,  if  those  cavillers  who  ring  such 


1 14  The  Browning  Craze. 

wearisome  changes  on  this  one  theme  have 
ever  considered  how  much  great  power  is 
often  at  the  root  of  poetical  grace.  Even 
if  Tennyson  were  only  felicitous  (and  he  is 
that  besides  being  a  very  noble  poet  as 
well)  he  would  have  accomplished  much. 
All  the  remarkable  poets  who  ever  lived 
have  had  as  much  grace  as  grandeur. 
Grace  is  frequently  inseparable  from  grand 
eur,  but  when  it  is  not  it  is  never  weak 
ness  ;  it  is  always  strength.  The  elastic 
step  and  flexible  form  of  some  delicate 
maiden  may  typify  an  endurance  and  forti 
tude  not  possessed  by  the  sturdiest  athlete. 
Just  as  there  were  thousands  of  people 
who  would  have  lost  all  regard  for  Carlyle 
if  he  had  been  dowered  with  a  decorous 
and  not  an  uncouth  English  idiom,  so  there 
are  thousands  to-day  who  would  consider 
Mr.  Browning's  poetry  very  tame  indeed 
were  it  not  studded  with  such  points  of 
ugliness  and  idiosyncrasy  as  those  which 
disfigure  "The  Flight  of  the  Duchess." 
But  other  poems  that  belong  to  Mr.  Brown 
ing's  earlier  manner,  that  were  published 
among  the  two  or  three  collections  with 
which,  years  ago,  he  first  presented  the 
world,  and  that  deserve  deep  if  not  un 
qualified  commendation,  are  u  Soliloquy  in 


T/ic  Browning  Craze*  1 1 5 

a  Spanish  Cloister,"  "The  Confessional," 
and  "Holy-Cross  Day."  All  these  are 
alive  with  vigor,  and  not  always  by  any 
means  impossible  to  understand  after  a 
second  or  third  reading — which  is  saying  a 
good  deal  against  them,  perhaps,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  confirmed  Brovvningite. 
''Holy-Cross  Day"  is  an  especially  original 
and  striking  presentation  of  the  Jew's  de 
graded  condition  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
Nothing  can  be  more  trenchant  than  its 
incidental  sarcasms,  nothing  more  acute 
than  the  reproaches  it  hurls  against  the 
bigotries  and  hypocrisies  of  its  time. 

All  these  better  and  wiser  poems  of  Mr. 
Browning  appeared  many  years  ago.  "Sor- 
delio"  had,  unless  I  err,  preceded  them, 
and  from  the  absurd  enigma  of  that  book 
their  comparative  clearness  was  a  welcome 
change.  Mr.  Browning  began  to  be  hailed 
as  a  poet  emergent  from  darkness,  and  in 
a  few  quarters  bright  hopes  were  enter 
tained  of  his  future.  '"Bordello,"  when 
heeded  at  all,  may  have  made  the  cynics  jest 
and  the  thoughtful  look  grieved,  but  we 
have  no  record  that  it  had  more  materially 
injured  the  young  versifier  who  had  chosen 
to  masquerade  in  it  en  sphinx.  Everybody 
knows  the  story  of  how  Barry  Cornwall's 


1 1 6  T/ic  Browning  Craze. 

\vife  gave  him  the  book  during  his  con 
valescence  after  a  great  illness,  and  of  how 
he  read  the  first  page  bewilderedly,  then 
amazedly,  and  at  length  in  nervous  terror. 
Handing  it  a  little  later  to  his  wife,  he 
asked  the  tremulous  question,  ''What  do 
you  make  of  this  ?"  And  when,  some  fif 
teen  or  twenty  minutes  afterwards,  Mrs. 
Proctor  replied,  "  I  don't  understand  a 
word  of  it,"  her  husband  burst  forth  in 
delight,."  Thank  God  I  am  not  mad  f  This 
tale  may  or  may  not  be  false,  but  it  cer 
tainly  bears  the  stamp  of  probability.  I  re 
call,  in  about  my  eighteenth  year,  discred 
iting  the  statements  I  had  heard  relative  to 
"Sordello's"  unintelligibility,  and  attempt 
ing  to  read  the  book  with  a  confidence  in 
my  own  anti-Philistine  comprehension  of 
it.  But  a  few  pages  convinced  me  that 
report  had  not  falsified  its  odious  "tough 
ness."  Beautiful  gleams  occur  in  it,  but 
they  are  like  flying  lights  over  a  surface  of 
heavy  darkness.  Now  and  then,  for  twenty 
lines  or  so,  you  feel  as  if  you  had  smoothly 
mastered  its  meaning ;  again,  all  is  dis 
array  and  density.  It  is  like  seeing  a  fine 
statue  reflected  in  a  cracked  mirror  :  here 
is  the  curve  of  a  symmetric  arm,  but  you 
follow  it  only  to  meet  an  abortive  bulge  of 


The  Browning  Craze,  117 

elbow  ;  there  is  the  outline  of  a  sculptur 
esque  cheek,  but  you  trace  below  it  a  re 
pellent  deformity  of  throat  ;  once  more 
you  light  with  joy  upon  a  thigh  of  fault 
less  moulding,  but  lower  down  you  are 
shocked  by  obese  distortion.  The  whole 
"poem"  resembles  a  caricature  of  some 
Gothic  cathedral,  in  planning  which  some 
demented  architect  has  treated  his  own 
madness  to  a  riot  of  gargoyles.  The  en 
semble  is  monstrous,  inexcusable.  But,  like 
many  of  Mr.  Browning's  later  modern 
poems,  it  strikes  you  as  more  of  a  wilful 
failure  than  a  feeble  one. 

All  the  plays  of  this  author  were  pub 
lished  by  him  while  he  was  still  a  young 
man.  He  calls  himself,  in  one  of  his  lyrics, 
"  Robert  Browning,  you  writer  of  plays," 
and  it  is  evident,  from  the  dramatic  spirit 
informing  a  great  deal  of  his  verse,  that  he 
believed  himself  with  extreme  seriousness 
to  be  a  dramatist  of  high  rank.  Eulogy 
untold  has  been  poured  upon  him  in  this 
capacity.  Long  before  the  "  Browning 
Craze"  had  developed  its  first  febrile  symp 
toms,  no  less  an  authority  than  Dickens 
was  reported  to  have  exclaimed,  in  a  burst 
of  enthusiastic  reverence,  that  he  would 
rather  have  written  "  A  Blot  in  the  'Scut- 


1 1 8  The  Browning  Craze. 

cheon "  than  all  the  novels  to  which  his 
name  was  signed  !  It  seems  impossible 
that  the  creator  of  ''David  Copperfield  " 
could  ever  have  made  any  such  wantonly 
random  declaration.  And  yet,  not  very 
long  ago,  an  English  writer  of  some  distinc 
tion  endeavored  to  prove  that  "  Strafford," 
"Colombe's  Birthday,"  and  "The  Return 
of  the  Druses"  had  been  successfully  per 
formed  before  London  audiences.  They 
may  have  been  performed,  but  that  they 
were  in  any  degree  successful  cannot  for 
an  instant  be  credited.  They  are  not 
dramas  at  all  ;  they  are  no  more  than  dia 
logues  divided  arbitrarily  into  acts.  And 
yet  they  have  been  compared  to  the  plays 
of  Shakespeare  by  several  inflammable 
zealots  in  the  Browning  cause.  Still,  after 
all,  writers  have  existed  who  rejoiced,  dur 
ing  the  past  two  hundred  years,  in  heaping 
odium  upon  Shakespeare  as  a  charlatan, 
and  we  all  recollect  the  contempt  with  which 
Sir  Samuel  Pepys  wrote  of  him,  not  to  men 
tion  Oliver  Goldsmith's  freely-expressed 
disdain  in  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield."  Thus 
it  becomes  apparent  that  human  taste  has 
many  foibles  and  vagaries,  and  that  the 
blare  of  a  few  partisan  trumpets  cannot  do 
much  for  the  establishment  of  -  a  genuine 


The  Browning  Craze.  \  1 9 

literary  fame.  As  for  that  mightily  be 
lauded  play,  "A  Blot  in  the  "Scutcheon," 
it  was  accorded  an  admirable  oral  chance 
at  the  Star  Theatre  in  New  York,  two  or 
three  years  ago.  Mr.  Lawrence  Barrett 
took  the  part  of  Tresham,  and  all  the  other 
characters,  as  the  newspapers  put  it,  were 
"in  good  hands."  Mr.  Barrett  and  all  his 
company  did  their  best  for  the  play.  At 
the  end  of  the  third  act  I  heard  somebody 
near  me  murmur  that  it  was  "  Oh,  im 
mensely  fine,  don't  you  know,  but  a  closet- 
play  .  .  .  yes,  decidedly  a  closet-play."  I 
could  not  help  asking  myself  whether  the 
reputation  which  it  had  through  years  en 
joyed  were  not  a  sort  of  closet-reputation 
as  well.  For  my  own  part,  I  had  heard  it 
somewhat  apathetically  and  mechanically 
called  "marvellous"  and  "grand"  a  great 
many  times,  before  I  attempted  to  read  it, 
by  people  who  used  these  epithets  as  though 
they  were  somehow  pledged  to  propriety 
for  their  correct  delivery.  But  I  realize 
now  that  it  is  a  work  of  talented  adroitness 
and  little  more.  There  is  something  curi 
ously  professorial  and  factitious  about  it, 
brought  forth  more  clearly  by  the  foot 
lights  than  by  perusal,  and  yet  perceptible 
through  either  medium.  Its  "  psychology" 


1 20  The  Browning  Craze. 

becomes  overburdening,  oppressive.  Every 
body,  from  the  first  scene  till  the  last,  is  on 
transcendental  stilts  ;  nor  is  such  impres 
sion  diminished  by  the  blunt,  choppy  char 
acter  of  Mr.  Browning's  blank  verse.  As 
Tresham  is  made  to  fling  this  forth  in  sen 
tence  after  sentence,  his  character  grows 
more  and  more  unsympathetic.  He  is 
meant  to  be  the  ideal  of  honor  and  nobility, 
and  he  gradually  becomes  to  us,  during  the 
progress  of  the  piece,  more  and  more  of  a 
petulant  metaphysician.  He  says  to  the 
seducer  of  his  sister,  on  finding  him  at  the 
casement  of  this  lady,  about  to  enter  it 
surreptitiously  at  night,- 

"  We  should  join  hands  in  frantic  sympathy 
If  you  once  taught  me  the  unteachable, 
Explained  how  you  can  live  so,  and  so  lie. 
With  God's  help  I  retain,  despite  my  sense, 
The  old  belief — a  life  like  yours  is  still 
Impossible.     Now  draw." 

Could  the  far-fetched  be  carried  much 
further  than  to  make  a  bluff  English  cav 
alier  talk  (and  especially  under  these  con 
ditions  of  anguish  and  preoccupation)  in  a 
strain  of  such  hair-splitting  highfalutinism  ? 
As  for  the  killing  of  Mertoun  by  Tresham, 
it  becomes,  considering  his  approaching 
marriage  to  Mildred,  almost  ridiculous  as 


The  Browning  Craze.  1 2 1 

a  tragic  expedient.  We  cannot  but  feel 
how  much  safer  than  &femme  courerte  that 
sister,  married  to  her  imprudent  boyish 
lover,  would  have  remained  for  the  rest  of 
her  life.  And  regarding  the  way. in  which 
Mildred  not  merely  forgives  but  blesses  the 
slayer  of  him  whom  she  worshipped,  I  will 
venture  to  affirm  that  there  was  not  a  single 
auditor  in  the  Star  Theatre  on  the  night  of 
the  performance  to  which  I  have  alluded, 
who  did  not  feel  that  here  a  note  of  the 
very  falsest  exaggeration  had  been  struck. 
But  the  "  Browning  Craze"  was  in  full  fury 
at  that  time,  and  perhaps  not  a  few  qualms 
of  natural  dislike  were  loyally  repressed. 
Of  the  many  incontestable  merits  that  be 
long  to  "A  Blot  in  the  'Scutcheon"  I  will 
not  speak  :  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  the 
world  has  had  these  dinned  into  its  ears, 
and  alike  the  friends  and  foes  of  Mr. 
Browning  should  by  this  time  be  well  ac 
quainted  with  them.  They  are  not,  in  my 
own  judgment,  at  all  equal  to  the  praise 
with  which  they  have  been  so  lavishly 
greeted.  The  play  is  at  best  three  acts  of 
inexorable  grimness,  lit  by  not  one  ray  of 
humor.  To  have  compared  it  with  any  of 
Shakespeare's  masterpieces  was  by  no 
means  a  friendly  office  to  perform  toward 


122  The  Browning  Craze. 

it,  since  time  is  apt  to  avenge  such  mistakes 
rather  harshly.  Perhaps  the  retribution 
may  be  quite  tardy  in  coming  :  it  usually 
is.  La  vengeance  est  un  plat  qui  se  mange 
froid.  But  in  the  end  it  is  apt  to  come. 
No  amount  of  thrifty  bushes  may  reconcile 
the  daintier  palate  to  inferior  wine,  though 
when  it  is  good  it  may  need  no  bush  at  all. 

"  Pippa  Passes"  deserves  mention  as  the 
most  charming  of  its  writer's  plays  ;  but, 
with  the  exception  of  "Paracelsus"  (a  very 
voluminous  affair,  full  of  untold  tedium), 
it  is  perhaps  the  least  "  actable"  of  them 
all.  It  is,  however,  a  most  delightful  pro 
duction,  and  the  only  member  of  its  group, 
I  should  say,  which  has  not  been  rated  far 
above  its  deserts.  The  others  attempt  to 
be  plays  and  are  not  ;  they  drag  ;  they  are 
over-subtle  ;  they  lack  freshness  or  attract 
iveness  of  story.  But  " Pippa  Passes, "an 
airy,  graceful,  and  yet  deeply  significant 
composition,  succeeds,  somehow,  in  being 
a  play  without  the  slightest  apparent  effort. 
That  it  will  not  act  is  nothing  derogatory 
to  it,  for  the  same  view  could  sensibly  be 
held  of  "The  Tempest." 

With  these  more  youthful  achievements 
it  might  be  said  that  the  fame  of  Mr. 
Browning  passed  through  its  primary 


The  Browning  Craze.  123 

phase.  His  name,  between  twenty  and 
thirty  years  ago,  was  rarely  spoken  without 
an  accent  of  mingled  admiration  and  amuse 
ment.  Few  except  silly  adulators  failed 
to  admit  his  grave  and  glaring  faults  ;  few 
except  those  whom  such  faults  drove  back 
from  an  acquaintance  with  him,  failed  to 
perceive  that  he  was  dowered  with  extra 
ordinary  natural  gifts.  By  such  a  poem 
as  "  In  a  Gondola  "he  had  won  his  right 
to  the  highest  future  recognition.  "  In 
a  Gondola "  was  marred  by  follies  of 
conception  and  execution,  but  it  seemed 
to'foretell  a  great  deal,  and  it  was  a  dra 
matic  lyric  that  now  and  then  pierced  and 
enraptured  its  reader.  Much  of  it  was 
superb,  and  other  portions  were  almost 
puerile  in  their  fantastic  heedlessness  of 
performance.  There  was,  up  to  this  point, 
no  doubt  that  Mr.  Browning  could  sing 
with  a  new  voice,  but  at  the  same  time  a 
voice  clogged  by  discordant  notes.  Would 
he  ever  rid  himself  of  those  notes  through 
a  careful  study  of  what  art  really  meant  ? 
Would  he  cast  aside  all  his  semi-barbarous 
peculiarities  and  rise  divested  of  their  en 
cumbering  mannerisms? 

"  The  Ring  and  the  Book  "  proved  other 
wise.     Mr.    Browning,    with    an    immense 


124  The  Browning  Craze. 

challenge,  flung  scorn  in  the  face  of  those 
who  had  hoped  the  brightest  things  for 
his  poetic  future. 

At  the  time  "The  Ring  and  the  Book" 
appeared,  Tennyson  had  set  the  spire  upon 
his  cathedral  of  majestic  song.  He  had 
written  'Maud,"  and  its  novelty  of  melody 
had  enchanted  thousands;  he  had  written 
"  The  Princess,"  and  its  prismatic  yet  potent 
verses  were  known  and  loved  countless 
miles  past  the  rainy  little  isle  in  which  he 
had  conceived  them;  he  had  made  "In 
Memoriam  "  break  like  a  sea  upon  a  thou 
sand  shores  of  thought,  throb  amid  count 
less  caves  of  speculation  and  yearning,  sob 
amid  unnumbered  reaches  of  passion  and 
regret.  Tennyson's  fame  had  already  based 
itself  upon  undying  pediments.  Mr.  Brown 
ing  was  expected  by  a  few  earnest  adher 
ents  to  surpass  the  Laureate.  Another 
effort  came  from  him,  and  as  "  The  Ring 
and  the  Book  "this  effort  was  promptly 
obse'de  with  flattering  bravos. 

But  what,  after  all,  was  it,  this  "Ring 
and  the  Book  "?  I  recall  spending  a  whole 
summer  in  trying  to  make  myself  believe 
that  it  was  a  great  poem.  I  was  then  about 
three-and-twenty  years  old,  and  many  re 
views  had  counselled  me  into  crediting  that 


The  Browning  Craze.  125 

it  was  something  worthy  to  be  put  side-and- 
side  with  Milton,  Dante  and  Heaven  knows 
whom  else  in  the  way  of  epic  splendor.  I 
am  tempted  to  write  now  with  the  boyish 
animus  that  filled  me  then,  but  in  doing  so 
I  must  first  record  that  I  respected  the  re 
viewers  very  fervently  and  wanted  to  prove 
I  was  their  mate  in  funds  of  devout  appre 
ciation.  And  how  I  did  struggle  to  bring 
about  this  result  !  How  I  beat  back  the 
promptings  of  my  better  judgment !  How  I 
insisted  upon  assuring  myself  that  such 
and  such  a  line  was  not  brutally  obscure  ! 
How  I  strove  to  convince  myself  that  the 
telling  of  the  same  story  over  and  over 
again,  even  though  different  mouths  thus 
told  it,  was  not  a  travesty  upon  analytic 
poignancy  !  I  was  in  that  servile  mood 
toward  the  newspaper  critics  then,  which 
may  in  a  measure  account  for  my  persist 
ent  distrust  during  later  years.  .  .  .  And  at 
last  my  good  angel  informed  me,  toward 
autumn,  that  I  had  wasted  my  summer, 
that  language  was  never  given  us  to  con 
ceal  our  thought,  and  that  every  artist  must 
either  seek  to  strengthen  his  expression 
through  the  clarification  of  it  or  be  content 
to  have  oblivion  punish  him  for  such  neg 
lect. 


126  The  Browning  Craze. 

lk  The  Ring  and  the  Book  "  was  le  com 
mencement  de  la  fin  with  Mr.  Browning.  It 
must  have  made  him  somewhat  like  the 
hero  in  his  own  praiseworthy  poem,  "A 
Lost  Leader,"  and  cost  him  many  rational 
devotees.  But  it  gained  him  others.  Mis 
final  poetic  step  had  been  taken.  He  was 
going  to  yield  himself  to  freaks  and  whims; 
he  intended  to  despise  the  artist  and  culti 
vate  \\\z  poseur. 

He  has  cultivated  the  poseur,  nearly  al 
ways,  ever  since. 

I  do  not  deny  the  brilliancy  of  his  mistake 
in  writing  "The  Ring  and  the  Book."  To 
refuse  force  to  that  wrork  would  be  like  re 
fusing  force  to  a  cyclone.  But  a  cyclone  is 
not  a  poem.  Perhaps  nothing  so  daringly 
prolix  has  ever  been  perpetrated  in  the 
whole  range  of  English  literature.  Hidden 
away  amid  the  quartz-like  Browningese  of 
text  lies  many  a  diamond  of  thought  and 
song.  But  reading  and  mining  are  two 
different  occupations.  One  cannot  well 
conceive  of  "  The  Ring  and  the  Book"  dy 
ing.  Death  will  will  probably  not  be  its 
fate,  but  a  protracted  oblivion  will  find  it 
instead.  Fashion  makes  people  read  it  and 
talk  about  it  now,  but  fashion  is  often  an 
other  name  for  forgetfulness.  Human  pa- 


TJie  Browning  Craze.  \  27 

tlence  will  not  endure  its  endless  repetitions 
of  the  same  theme,  its  terribly  tiresome 
presentations  of  one  bloody  and  unsavory 
tale  at  different  angles  of  vision.  You  can 
scarcely  see  in  the  whole  massive  bulk  and 
plan  of  this  metrical  monstrosity  any  trace 
of  the  humor  which  Mr.  Browning  has  oc 
casionally  shown  elsewhere  ;  a  keener  hu 
morous  sense  would,  I  think,  have  saved  him 
from  the  attempt  to  saddle  poor  posterity 
with  so  cumbrous  a  burden.  Nor  is  Mr. 
Browning's  blank  verse,  even  when  most 
clear  of  meaning,  an  agreeable  species  of 
invention.  It  is  original  enough  ;  its  ear 
marks  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  those 
of  any  other  poet ;  but  when  least  marred 
by  parentheses,  inversions,  involutions, 
quos  egos  and  ellipses,  it.  is  almost  never 
free  from  a  particular  trick  or  conceit, 
which  grows,  after  incessant  recurrence,  as 
much  a  monotony  as  an  aggravation.  This 
consists  in  making  one  substantive  stand 
for  several  verbs,  each  verb  being  at  the 
root,  so  to  speak,  of  a  new  and  distinct  sen 
tence,  but  all  sentences  being  huddled  to 
gether  in  a  way  that  sometimes  renders 
turbid  the  simplest  thought.  Let  us  try  to 
find  an  instance  or  two  of  this  painful  pe- 


128  The  Browning  Craze. 

culiarity.      Take  the  following,  for  exam 
ple,  from  "  The  Ring  and  the  Book  :" 

"The  Canon  Caponsacchi,  then,  was  sent 
To  change  his  garb,  retrim  his  tonsure,  tie 
The  clerkly  silk  round  every  plait  correct, 
Make  the  impressive  entry  on  his  place 
Of  relegation.  .  . " 

Or  this,  from  a  like  source  : 

"  What  if  he  gained  thus  much, 
Wrung  out  this  sweet  drop  from  the  bitter  Past, 
Bore  off  this  rose-bud  from  the  prickly  brake 
To  justify  such  torn  clothes  and  scratched  hands, 
And,  after  all,  brought  something  back  from  Rome  ?" 

But  the  illustrations  of  this  most  infelic 
itous  tendency  could  be  made  to  cover 
pages.  And  we  are  now  accepting  Mr. 
Browning's  blank  verse  at  its  best,  not  at 
its  worst.  Its  worst  is  sometimes  posi 
tively  horrifying.  Surely  the  man  should 
have  a  very  wondrous  message  for  human 
ity  who  aims  to  deliver  this  message  as  a 
poet  and  yet  continually  scorns  to  do  so  as 
an  artist.  But,  after  all,  who  of  us  has  a 
hard  enough  conscience  to  grant  that  the 
artist  and  the  poet  are  ever  separable  ? 
Whatever  his  mentality,  his  reach  of  spirit 
ual  vision,  his  command  of  pungent  and 
illuminative  epithet,  how  shall  a  writer 


The  Browning  Craze .  129 

presume  to  disdain  form  in  searching  after 
the  expression  of  truth  ?  Quand  on  se  bat 
on  ne  choisit  pas  ses  armes  may  reasonably 
explain  the  method  of  some  hot  contestant 
against  a  political  or  social  wrong.  But 
when  the  poet  fights  what  he  believes  to 
be  worst  error,  are  we  not  justified  in  ex 
pecting  from  him  a  well-burnished  blade 
and  a  wrist  whose  turns  reveal  both  dex 
terity  and  harmonious  movement  ?  To  the 
merest  beginner  in  verse-making  it  is  com 
monly  understood  that  clashes  of  conso 
nants  are  the  sorriest  destruction  of  melody. 
He  must  avoid  them  if  he  wishes  to  write 
presentable  or  reputable  iambs.  And  yet 
Mr.  Browning  outrages  taste  in  the  follow 
ing  lines,  taken  at  random  from  his  works, 
where  remain  innumerable  other  specimens, 
just  as  dissonant,  strident,  and  sibilant  : 

It  strikes  a  Fourth,  a  Fifth  thrusts  in  its  nose  .  .  . 
Two  must  discept  .  .  .  has  distinguished  .  .  . 
God's  gold  just  shining  its  last  where  that  lodges  .  .  . 
Billets  that  blaze  substantial  and  slow  .  .  . 
The    Knights  who   to   the   Dark   Tower's   search 

addressed  .  .  . 
Fear  which  stings  ease  .  .  . 
"You  are  sick,  that's  sure,"  they  say  .  .  . 
Who  breasted,  beat    Barbarians,  stemmed  Persia 

rolling  on  ... 
To  a  citv  bears  a  fall'n  host's  woes  .  .  . 


1 30  The  Br craning  Craze. 

Wagner,  Dvorak,  Liszt  ...  to  where  .  .  .  trumpets, 

shawms  .  .  . 
Adjudges  such  .  .  .  how  canst  thou  .  .   .  this  wise 

bound  .  .  . 

And  finally,  from  "  Ferishtah's  Fancies:" 
When  my  lips  just  touched  your  cheek  .  .  . 

The  italics  here  are  my  own  ;  for  although 
the  consonantal  gruffness  in  this  last  quoted 
line  is  not  so  striking  as  that  of  many 
which  have  preceded  it,  the  contrast  be 
tween  its  tender  sentiment  and  its  coarsely 
unmelodic  versification  affects  one  like  a 
vulgar  slap  in  the  face.  Multitudes  of 
other  similar  lines  exist  throughout  Mr. 
Browning's  copious  work.  And  I  cannot 
see  how  any  vigor  of  idea  can  excuse  such 
feebleness  of  presentation.  Surely  nature 
and  life,  which  are  so  akin  to  art,  do  not 
demand  of  us  an  indulgence  for  such  un 
happy  imperfection.  Because  a  gnarled 
and  blasted  tree  bears  a  few  sprays  of  fresh 
and  glossy  leaves  we  do  not  gaze  upon  it 
to  the  neglect  of  healthful  surrounding 
growths.  Because  we  know  that  a  child 
or  a  woman  possesses  mental  charms  we 
do  not  tolerate  a  waspish  acerbity  of  phrase 
in  either.  But  from  art  we  exact  the  near 
est  approach  to  perfection,  not  the  most 


The  Browning  Craze.  1 3 1 

zigzag  deviation  from  it.  Poetic  fame  has 
no  pathway  to  its  temple  like  that  traditional 
one  to  a  forlorner  goal  ;  it  is  not  paved  with 
good  intentions  ;  we  insist,  indeed,  upon 
its  being  quarried  from  the  very  marbles 
of  Pentelicus. 

Mr.  Browning's  published  writing  since 
"  The  Ring  and  the  Book  "  need  not  be 
dwelt  upon  in  this  essay.  Those  loyal  mani 
acs  to  the  "  Browning  Craze  "  have  their  own 
Bedlamite  reasons,  no  doubt,  for  admiring 
"Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country"  and 
"The  Inn  Album."  And,  after  all,  what 
(in  America,  at  least)  does  the  "  Browning 
Craze  "  signify  ?  The  spirit  of  American 
culture  has  always  been  an  imitative  one, 
and  not  seldom  to  a  snobbish  degree.  It 
was  quite  in  the  order  of  things  that  the 
"  Browning  Craze  "  should  rise  in  London, 
flow  a  westerly  course,  and  empty  into 
Chicago.  But  it  submerged  Boston  on  its 
way — or  at  least  partially  so.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  in  both  cities  the  societies  which 
have  been  its  offspring  possess  many  intel 
ligent  and  sincere  members.  But  it  is  very 
improbable  that  all  these  members  are 
either  intelligent  or  sincere.  One  might 
confidently  assert  that  a  great  many  of 
them  arc  clouded  by  dulness  and  tinctured 


132  T] ic  Browning  Craze. 

with  toadyism.  It  does  not  require  much 
brains  for  anybody  to  perceive  that  the  as 
sumption  of  a  certain  taste  will  produce 
the  appearance  of  exclusiveness  on  the  part 
of  such  an  assumer.  The  jargon  of  the 
•art-schools,  for  example,  is  easily  caught, 
and  at  almost  any  exhibition  of  foreign 
paintings  you  will  discover  that  some  pic 
ture  which  the  general  public  would  turn 
from  as  unpardonably  quaint,  rococo,  or 
audacious  will  attract  a  little  coterie  of 
fervid  adorers.  Perhaps  a  few  of  these 
may  honestly  believe  that  the  painter  in 
question  is  a  towering  genius  ;  but  the  ma 
jority  are  yearning  to  anoint  his  locks  with 
spikenard  and  myrrh  solely  because  he  is 
considered  "caviare  to  the  general,"  above 
the  vulgar  herd  et  id  genus  omne.  It  is 
doubtful  whether  the  Browning  societies  of 
England  have  gained  as  many  recruits  from 
any  other  cliques  or  associations  as  from 
those  whom  Mr.  Gilbert  has  so  mercilessly 
satirized  as  the  Esthetes.  But  to  be  an 
aesthete  is  by  no  means  to  be  a  fool.  These 
persons  laugh  among  each  other  at  the 
caricatures  into  which  they  turn  themselves, 
very  much  as  we  may  believe  that  any  two 
augurs  did  of  old.  Possibly  the  Brown- 
ingites  laugh  now  and  then  among  each 


The  Browning  Craze.  133 

other  at  the  solemn  importance  with  which 
they  are  supposed  to  inform  the  digging 
out  of  a  poor  tortured  thought  from  be 
neath  crushing  layers  of  words.  And  when 
they  reflect  at  all  seriously  upon  their 
undertakings  and  their  achievements,  the 
result  certainly  cannot  be  very  edifying. 
To  become  a  Browningite  is  indeed  not 
to  have  distinguished  one's  self  for  much 
sense,  either  common  or  uncommon.  Hero- 
worship  is  always  an  unwholesome  occupa 
tion,  even  if  the  hero  shine  with  a  truly 
glorious  light.  Yet  in  the  case  of  Mr. 
Browning  there  is  no  glorious  light  at  ail, 
but  one  put  under  a  bushel,  and  put  there 
with  not  a  little  of  the  same  insufferable 
vanity  that  made  Diogenes  take  up  his 
abode  in  a  tub.  There  are  very  few  broad- 
minded  and  unaffected  people  who  have 
read  Mr.  Browning's  poetry,  or  the  worthier 
portion  of  it,  who  would  not  be  willing 
unhesitatingly  to  tell  us  that  he  might  have 
grown  a  poet  of  wide  and  persistent  fame. 
But  he  has  chosen  so  to  mantle  himself  in 
the  most  rash  and  headlong  moods  of  ob 
scurity,  he  has  so  trivialized,  cheapened  and 
frittered  away  the  talents  which  might 
have  made  him  serve  efficiently  the  mag 
nificent  art  he  professes  to  revere,  that  his 


1 34  The  Browning  Craze. 

laurels  will  turn  dry  and  brittle  long  before 
another  century  has  dealt  with  his  present 
renown.  Meanwhile  he  has  a  kind  of  adu 
lation  to-day,  but  one  with  which  no  true 
artist  should  be  content.  Indeed,  the 
author  of  "  Fifine  at  the  Fair  "  and  "  Pac- 
chiarotto  "  is  no  longer  an  artist,  though 
he  who  wrote  u  Pippa  Passes  "  and  "  Love 
among  the  Ruins"  may  once  have  closely 
approximated  to  such  a  distinction.  He 
may  not  be  aware  of  the  biting  and  dis 
creditable  fact,  but  hundreds  of  those  who 
now  "  study  "  and  "  cultivate "  him  are 
beings  of  the  kind  who  would  rave  hysteri 
cally  over  some  headless  and  armless  torso, 
if  thoroughly  sure  that  the  leve  vulgus 
would  not  presume  to  join  in  their  pedantic 
chorus,  after  so  forlorn  a  fragment  of 
sculpture  had  been  excavated  and  set  up 
for  popular  inspection. 

That  Mr.  Browning  is  a  poet  representa 
tive  of  the  age  in  which  he  now  so  eminently 
flourishes  cannot  with  any  fairness  be  con 
ceded.  His  work  makes  one  point  plain, 
though  it  leaves  so  many  others  in  darkness. 
The  impetus  of  rationalistic  thought  seems 
hardly  to  have  touched  him.  He  is  an 
orthodox  believer  of  the  most  acquiescent 
type,  as  his  "  Christmas  Eva  and  Easter 


The  Browning  Craze.  135 

Day  "  would  conclusively  reveal,  apart  from 
hundreds  of  other  evidences  throughout 
the  vast  volume  of  his  work.  The  sinewy 
scientific  push  of  his  time  has .  left  him 
conservatively  unaffected.  He  regards  the 
priceless  teachings  of  such  men  as  Herbert 
Spencer,  Buckle,  Tyndall,  Huxley  and 
Lecky  with  as  much  unconcern  as  if  he 
were  a  clergyman  sanctified  by  the  most 
rigid  Church-of-England  orders.  No  qualm 
of  doubt  regarding  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles 
appears  ever  to  disturb  him.  He  is  just  as 
pious  as  he  is  frequently  opaque.  He  refers 
to  God  with  that  familiarity  of  personal 
acquaintanceship  which  might  distinguish 
our  own  Dr.  Talmage.  He  is  perfectly 
sure  and  satisfied  on  the  question  not  only 
of  an  anthropomorphic  deity  but  on  that  of 
a  future  immortality,  accountability,  par 
don  and  punishment.  A  good  deal  of 
his  vagueness  is  like  that  of  the  current 
theological  treatise  ;  to  the  consistent  and 
logical  agnostic  of  our  time  it  means  nearly 
the  same  thing.  Those  who  want  their 
modern  poets  to  be  men  permeated  by  the 
so-called  materialism  of  the  century  will 
not  find  a  poet  after  their  own  heart  in  a 
singer  to  whom  the  divinity  of  Christ  is 
romantically  indisputable.  For  some  minds 


136  The  fir  owning  Craze. 

it  will  seem  difficult  to  accept  this  kind  of 
poet  as  great,  at  an  epoch  when  English 
philosophy  has  drawn  so  sharp  a  limit  be 
fore  the  abyss  of  the  unknowable.  Mr. 
Browning  might  be  inclined  to  shift  the 
entire  burden  of  ecclesiastic  responsibility 
off  his  shoulders  by  declaring  that  he  does 
not  speak  for  himself  but  for  his  countless 
dramatic  characters  ;  and  yet  he  speaks 
through  no  lips  except  his  own  when  he 
says,  with  hardy  dogmatism  : 

God's  work,  be  sure, 

No  more  spreads  wasted  than  falls  scant  I 
Me  filled,  did  nov  exceed,  man's  want 
Of  beauty  in  this  life. 

And  again  : 

So  hapt 

My  chance.     HE  stood  there.     Like  the  smoke 

Pillared  o'er  Sodom  when  day  broke, — 

I  saw  Him.     One  magnific  pall 

Mantled  in  massive  fold  and  fall 

His  dread,  and  coiled  in  snaky  swathes 

About  his  feet  :   night's  black,  that  bathes 

All  else,  broke,  gri/.zled  with  despair, 

Against  the  soul  of  blackness  there. 

A  gesture  told  the  mood  within — 

That  wrapped  right  hand  which  based  the  chin, 

That  intense  meditation  fixed 

On  his  procedure, — pity  mixed 


The  Br -owning  Craze.  137 

With  the  fulfilment  of  decree. 
Motionless,  thus,  lie  spoke  to  me, 
Who  fell  before  his  feet,  a  mass, 
No  man  now. 

Bugabooism  could  not  go  much  further 
than  this.  There  is  something  Calvinistic 
in  these  words,  emanent  soon  afterward 
from  the  mouth  of  a  palpable  and  tangible 
deity  : 

In  the  roll 

Of  judgment  which  convinced  mankind 
Of  sin,  stood  many,  bold  and  blind, 
Terror  must  burn  the  truth  into.  .  .  . 

These  and  like  passages  indicate  unmis 
takably  that  Mr.  Browning  accepts  Chris 
tianity  in  not  a  few  of  its  most  conventional 
forms.  This  may  be  all  well  enough  ;  it  is 
quite  the  gentleman's  own  business  if  he 
goes  regularly  to  church  every  Sunday  and 
hears  a  sermon  less  involved  as  to  meaning 
than  one  of  his  own  poems  and  at  times 
considerably  more  grammatical.  But  it 
would  be  idle  to  claim  that  he  who  exhibits 
this  theologic  passivity,  this  religious  com 
plaisance,  can  be  said  to  rank  at  all  abreast 
of  his  period  as  a  strenuous  and  catholic 
thinker.  It  is  true  that  the  most  amaz 
ing  doctrines  exist  with  regard  to  the 
right  province  of  poetry  and  the  fitting 


138  TJic  Browning  Craze. 

equipments  of  poets,  and  a  multitude  of 
critics,  otherwise  quite  credible,  will  tell 
you  that  it  is  not  half  so  necessary  for  the 
poet  to  think  as  to  feel.  But  thinking  and 
feeling,  as  modern  science  explains,  are 
pretty  nearly  one  and  the  same  thing. 
Wordsworthian  "  inspiration "  is  not  es 
teemed  so  highly  as  it  was  forty  years  ago. 
The  canons  and  requisitions  of  art, 
however,  remain  unaltered.  Emotion  is 
still  a  splendidly  reputable  factor  in  all 
poetry  when  governed  by  that  self-control 
which  is  the  secret  equally  of  Shakespeare's 
best  verse  as  it  is  of  Longfellow's  or  Lord 
Tennyson's.  License  of  expression  has 
been  so  often  and  imprudently  praised  in 
poets  that  an  unfortunate  abuse  of  latitude 
has  become  far  too  manifest  among  En 
glish-speaking  circles  of  them.  Who  has 
not  heard  the  contemptuous  declaration 
that  "  there  is  more  truth  than  poetry  "  in 
such  and  such  a  statement?  If  scientific 
investigation  is  the  reigning  intellectual 
stimulus  of  our  nineteenth  century,  that  is 
very  far  from  being  a  cause  why  poetry 
should  perish.  For  poetry,  we  now  per 
ceive,  is  not  to  be  defined  as  Milton  (a 
great  poet)  defined  it,  or  as  Poe  (a  very 
poor  one)  also  defined  it.  Poetry  is  life,  as 


TIic  Browning  Craze.  139 

all  literature  is  life.  But  it  is  life  in  this 
different  way  from  the  rest  of  literature, 
that  over  it  is  flung  the  influence  of  beauty, 
and  so  the  phases  of  human  experience  are 
made  in  turn  sublimely,  tenderly,  or  pa 
thetically  noteworthy.  This  influence  is 
like  a  transfiguring  light ;  it  is  presentment, 
treatment,  in  a  certain  limited  meaning, 
enchantment.  The  subject  itself  may  be 
more  or  less  susceptible  of  elevation.  By 
ron  had  merely  to  let  this  light  play  over 
such  a  subject  as  Venice,  Lake  Leman, 
Petrarch's  tomb,  the  stars  of  heaven,  or  a 
storm  in  the  Jura  Alps,  and  enthralling  po 
etic  pictures  glowed  with  vividness  before 
the  mind.  But  Burns,  as  his  admirers  as 
sert,  made  a  mouse  immortal  by  precisely 
the  same  means.  Often  you  hear  it  affirmed 
that  this  or  that  subject  cannot  be  dealt 
with  by  poetry,  that  it  is  too  mean,  too 
inferior,  too  recondite,  too  coarse,  too 
prosaic.  In  these  cases  the  transfiguring 
light  has  been  more  difficult  to  throw,  or 
perhaps  the  imaginative  flame  and  lenses 
whence  it  has  taken  origin  have  been  ill-fed 
and  ill-managed.  The  more  un-ideal  the 
subject  the  harder  to  idealize  it,  to  turn  it 
into  poetry.  And  yet  we  have  seen  Shakes 
peare  in  his  creation  of  "Caliban,"  Milton 


140  The  Browning  Craze. 

in  his  "  Satan,"  Coleridge  in  his  "  Ancient 
Mariner,"  and  Lord  Tennyson  in  his  "Vis 
ion  of  Sin,"  envelop  the  uncanny  and  repul 
sive  with  a  raiment  as  of  magical  tissue. 
Students  of  French  poetry  will  remember 
"  La  Charogne  "  of  Baudelaire,  a  poem  which 
has  always  struck  me  with  the  same  effect 
as  if  it  were  a  moonlit  dung-heap.  I  do 
not  applaud,  or  even  suggest  an  approval  of, 
such  poetry.  But  if  the  dung-heap  is  there, 
so,  somehow,  is  the  moonlight  ;  and  who 
that  has  read  this  thrilling  poem  can  for 
get  the  melody  and  eloquence  of  its  last 
stanza  ? — 

Alors,  0  in  a  bemitJ,  dites  a  la  vcrinine 

Qui  tc  mangera  de  baisers, 
Qite  je  garde  la  forme  et  r essence  divine 

De  nits  ai/untrs  decomposes  ! 

The  English  have,  as  Mr.  Browning's 
own  famous  wife  said  of  them,  in  her 
"  Aurora  Leigh," 

A  scornful  insular  way 
Of  calling  the  French  light. 

But,  notwithstanding  this  alleged  Gallic 
lightness,  I  do  not  believe  it  would  be  pos 
sible  for  a  '•  Sordello,"  an  "Inn  Album,"  a 
"Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country,"  or 
even  a  ''Ring  and  the  Book,"  to  have  ap- 


The  Browning  Craze.  141 

peared  in  French  without  promptly  being 
crushed  by  the  heaviest  judicial  censure. 
And  what  rigid,  healthy,  uncompromising 
lessons  would  Mr.  Browning  have  been 
taught  if  he  had  been  born  a  Frenchman  ! 
Not  that  he  could  not  have  learned  excel 
lent  lessons  while  still  remaining  an  Eng 
lishman.  But  as  a  writer  of  French  verse 
his  crimes  against  style  would  have  suf 
fered  condign  and  relentless  punishment. 
The  French  would  either  have  long  ago 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  attain  the 
least  celebrity,  writing  as  he  has  written, 
or  they  would  have  trained  and  taught 
him  by  the  simple  yet  forcible  formula, 
that  no  great  poet  can  ever  achieve  great 
ness  through  the  wilful  wrapping  up  of  his 
meaning.  And  this  is  the  sin  which  Mr. 
Browning  has  repeatedly,  unrepentingly 
committed.  The  "craze"  which  he  has 
succeeded  in  rousing  is  one  of  those  inex 
plicable  drifts  of  literary  fashion  that 
mark,  both  here  and  in  England,  our 
strange  passing  century.  But  in  England 
it  is  not  their  first  similar  mistake.  They 
crowned  and  then  discrowned  poor  Sidney 
Dobell ;  they  raved  over  and  then  flouted 
Alexander  Smith  ;  they  lifted  Gerald  Mas- 
sey  upon  a  lyric  pedestal  only  to  hurl  him 


142  The  Broivning  Craze. 

downward  a  little  later.  For  us  Am-jri- 
cans  to  catch  this  curious  fever  is  far  less 
excusable,  and  a  good  deal  of  fatuous, 
cringing  Anglomania  is  at  the  bottom  of 
it.  To-day  we  are  devoutly  imitating 
British  perversity  in  our  genuflection  be 
fore  a  very  ordinary  Russian  novelist 
named  Tolstoi,  and  both  writing  and 
speaking  of  that  sketchy,  padded,  inter 
minable  tale,  "Anna  Karenina,"  as  if  it 
were  really  a  classic  masterpiece.  But  the 
gods,  as  everybody  knows,  are  very  angry  at 
the  idea  of  an  International  Copyright,  and 
in  their  animosity  they  seem  to  have  made 
the  American  reader  their  diligent  abet 
tor.  Until  the  American  reader  pays  less 
attention  to  the  curiosities  of  transatlantic 
literature  and  more  to  the  honest  efforts 
enshrined  within  his  own,  we  cannot  hope 
for  much  chance  of  his  even  desiring  that 
Congress  shall  do  her  work  of  reparation 
and  atonement.  He  might  not,  after  all, 
find  it  so  very  unpalatable  to  exchange  his 
"Browning  Craze"  for  an  Emerson  one. 
Emerson  was  a  great  deal  more  spiritual 
poet  than  is  Mr.  Browning,  and  yet  quite 
as  virile.  He  had  the  faculty,  also,  of  con 
veying  his  thoughts  neither  in  spasms  nor 
mysticisms.  Moreover,  he  is  a  wonder- 


The  Browning  Craze.  143 

fully  stimulating  writer  to  other  minds, 
and  debates  and  discussions  that  took 
either  his  prose  or  verse  as  their  lext 
might  perhaps  bring  just  as  much-profit  as 
wading  through  pages  that  too  often  seem 
but  a  turbulent  brawl  and  snarl  of  verbi 
age. 

One  of  the  most  distressing  features 
about  Mr.  Browning's  existent  reputation 
— distressing,  I  mean,  to  those  who  discern 
and  measure  its  basis  of  humbug — is  the 
way  in  which  his  admirers  are  never  Lired 
of  saying  that  it  wholly  outshines  the  re 
nown  of  Lord  Tennyson,  and  that  its  pos 
sessor  has  touched,  thus  far  in  our  cen 
tury,  the  high-tide  mark  of  English  poetry. 
So,  until  not  very  long  since,  fanatics  cried 
that  Carlyle,  with  his  barbarisms,  loomed 
above  that  most  masterly  and  dignified 
of  writers,  Macaulay  ;  but  now  the  brief 
prejudice  of  the  hour  has  passed,  and  the 
morrows  have  begun  to  dole  out  equity, 
as  they  generally  do,  with  no  matter  how 
tardy  a  service. 

Never  was  a  greater  literary  injustice 
perpetrated  than  the  placing  of  Mr. 
Browning  above  Lord  Tennyson.  The 
Laureate  has  indeed  served  his  art  with  a 
profound  and  lovely  fidelity,  while  it  is  no 


144  The  Broivniug  Craze. 

exaggeration  to  state  of  Mr.  Browning 
that  he  has  not  seldom  insulted  his  as 
though  it  were  a  pickpocket.  "  In  a  Gon 
dola  "  may  be  a  fine  love-lyric;  but  who 
would  compare  its  halting  ruggedness  to 
the  fairy  music  of  "The  Day-Dream  ?" 
Only  the  people  who  profess  to  like  the 
Venus  of  Milo  better  without  her  lost 
arms  than  with  them  -the  people  to  whom 
deficiency  and  inadequacy  are  held  dearer 
than  ^lawlessness  and  finish.  A  passion 
for  Mr.  Browning's  work  has  frequently 
been  one  of  the  refuges  of  mediocrity. 
You  are  thrown,  as  it  were,  with  a  mixed 
but  rather  patrician  society  of,  let  us  say 
.  .  .  invalids,  in  the  same  asylum.  And  it 
is  such  a  mild,  elegant  sort  of  lunacy ! 
Nobody  is  very  much  in  earnest,  after  all. 
They  have  learned,  most  of  them,  to  look 
as  if  they  thought  "  A  Pillar  at  Sebzevat " 
luminiferous  reading  and  "Jochanan  Hak- 
kadosh"  a  model  of  perspicuity.  If  you 
say  to  them  that  Mr.  Browning  has  never 
produced  a  poem  half  so  grand  as  the 
"Ode  on  the  Duke  of  Wellington,"  they 
appear  to  feel  so  sorry  for  you  that  you 
begin  to  feel  sorry,  yourself,  for  having 
drawn  thus  largely,  if  unintentionally, 
upon  the  funds  of  their  compassion.  And 


The  Broivning  Craze.  145 

yet  bid  them  to  show  you  where,  through 
out  all  Mr.  Browning's  dramatic  idyls, 
dramatic  lyrics  and  dramatic  everything 
else,  there  are  poems  that  so  burn  with 
beauty  as  the  monologues  of  "  CEnone,"  of 
'•Tithonus,"  of  "The  Miller's  Daughter," 
of  "Maud,"  of  "The  Dream  of  Fair  Wo 
men,"  of  "  The  Palace  of  Art,"  of  "  St.  Sim 
eon  Stylites,"  of  "  The  Gardener's  Daugh 
ter,"  of  "Sir  Galahad,"  and  they  will  be 
apt  to  give  you  response  as  indefinite  as  if 
it  had  been  taken  from  some  of  their  great 
master's  verse.  For  all  these  poems  just 
mentioned  are  monologues  ;  all,  in  varying 
degrees,  are  essentially  dramatic.  Tenny 
son  chose,  until  his  later  life,  to  ignore 
the  writing  of  drama  ;  but  if  he  had  at 
tempted,  in  the  full  flush  of  his  masterly 
vigor,  to  produce  a  "Cup,"  a  "  Harold"  or 
a  "  Queen  Mary,"  there  cannot  be  much 
real  question  as  to  whether  he  would  or 
would  not  have  eclipsed  "Colombe's  Birth 
day  "  and  "  King  Victor  and  King  Charles." 
I  can  ill  imagine  how  any  actual  artist 
would  not  instantly  make  up  his  mind  to 
retain  "In  Memorlam "  and  "The  Prin 
cess  "  (those  two  inestimable  marvels)  even 
if  by  doing  so  he  were  threatened  with  the 
loss  of  everything  that  Mr.  Browning  has 


146  The  Browning  Craze. 

ever  done,  from  the  murky  glooms  of 
"  Sordello"  down  to  the  recent  most  indo 
lently  scribbled  "Parleyings."  And  as  for 
those  four  incomparable  "  Idyls  of  the 
King" — "Enid,"  "Elaine,"  Vivien"  and 
"Guinevere" — where  amid  the  bristling 
entanglements  of  such  verse  as  that  pub 
lished  by  the  author  of  "  Prince  Hohen- 
stiel-Schwangau "  shall  we  reach  either 
their  peers  or  their  semblances  ? 

Scientific  criticism,  which  is  the  only 
kind  meriting  both  credence  and  respect, 
will  one  day,  perhaps,  demonstrate  much 
of  what  I  have  here  only  postulated,  with 
out  aspiring  logically  to  prove.  And  when 
such  an  event  occurs  it  should  strike  a  tell 
ing  blow  at  the  languor  which  enervates  a 
large  proportion  of  those  readers  who  have 
permitted  their  tastes  to  play  very  fantas 
tic  tricks  with  them.  There  is  no  objec 
tion  to  the  hottest  rebellion  against  purity 
and  sanity  of  method  among  iconoclasts 
who  would  replace  gentle  order  by  dan 
gerous  misrule  ;  it  is  only  when  anarchy 
gets  into  the  high  places  of  literature  and 
begins  its  assaults,  mutilations  and  sub 
versions  there  that  the  intemperate  are 
led  to  exult  and  the  judicious  to  deplore. 
Still,  progress,  that  arrives  at  so  many  of 


The  Browning  Craze.  147 

her  destinations  by  circuitous  paths,  may 
be  trusted  yet  again  to  set  the  crooked 
straight.  It  deserves  to  be  held  as  proba 
ble  that  she  is  at  the  present  date  mysti 
cally  concerning  herself  with  a  future 
demolition  of  the  "  Browning  Craze  ;  "  and 
that  her  action  may  be  speedy  is  a  likeli 
hood  which  all  consistent  optimists  ought 
to  place  well  up  on  the  list  of  their  rosiest 
hopes. 


'/ 

ft 


*h  6 

X 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   OUIDA. 

*2)  ft  *t,  W  >O  ^«/  «o^     X/^/ 

READERS  of  current  literature  may  have 
recently  observed  that  two  writers  of  repu 
tation,  Miss  Harriet  W.  Preston  and  Mr. 
Julian  Hawthorne,  have  been  expressing 
rather  pronounced  opinions  regarding  the 
works  of  Ouida.  Mr.  Hawthorne's  judg 
ment  was  brief,  and  I  need  only  add  that  it 
was  extremely  severe  —  far  more  severe, 
indeed,  than  any  critical  statement  which  I 
ever  remember  to  have  seen  expressed  by 
that  writer.  Miss  Preston's  decision  took 
a  much  ampler  form,  and  occupied  nearly 
twelve  pages  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  What 
ever  may  have  been  Miss  Preston's  inten 
tion,  she  certainly  does  not  appeal  to  us  as 
one  whom  the  merits  of  Ouida  have  more 
than  lukewarmly  affected.  And  yet,  at  the 
beginning  of  her  essay,  she  assumes  the  at 
titude  of  an  appreciator  rather  than  a  de 
tractor,  taking  pains  to  declare  that  her 
inquiry  regarding  the  true  causes  of  Ouida's 
immense  popularity  shall  be  "  primarily 

148 


The  Truth  about  Quid  a.  149 

and  chiefly  a  search  for  merits  rather  than 
a  citation  of  defects."  With  this  excellent 
resolution  fully  formed,  she  at  once  pro 
ceeds  to  draw  comparisons  between  Ouida 
and  such  great  writers  as  Scott,  George 
Sand,  and  even  Victor  Hugo.  This  has  an 
encouraging  sound  enough  ;  we  have  the 
sensation  that  a  refreshingly  new  note  is  to 
be  struck  in  the  general  tone  of  fierce 
vituperation  by  which  Ouida  has  been  so 
persistently  assailed  for  twenty  years.  The 
truth  about  Ouida  would  be  a  pleasant 
thing  to  hear;  we  have  heard  so  much  facile 
falsehood.  But  Miss  Preston  proceeds  to 
invest  her  theme  with  a  curiously  languid 
and  tepid  atmosphere.  She  finally  aston 
ishes  all  the  sincere  admirers  of  Ouida — 
and  their  number  is  to-day,  among  intelli 
gent  people,  thousands  and  thousands — by 
saying  that  her  "imagination,  vigorous 
though  it  be  and  prolific,  seldom  rises  to 
really  poetic  heights."  This  is  certainly 
depressing  for  any  one  who  has  taken  de 
light  in  such  exceptional  prose-poems  as 
"  Ariadne"  and  "Signa."  Still,  a  proper 
avoidance  of  enthusiasm  must  always  form 
part  of  the  modern  critic's  equipment  ;  the 
fashion  is  to  look  at  everything  imperturb- 
ably,  from  the  Sphinx  to  the  Brooklyn 


150  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

Bridge  ;  we  somehow  only  tolerate  the  ex 
orbitant  and  the  florid  when  it  takes  the 
shape  of  disgusted  invective.  For  a  long 
period  Ouida  has  endured  the  latter  (not 
always  quite  patiently,  if  some  of  her  retali 
atory  newspaper  letters  are  recalled),  and  I 
confess  that  we  owe  Miss  Preston  a  debt  of 
gratitude  for  breaking  the  ice  at  last.  None 
the  less,  however,  do  we  own  to  a  feeling 
that  the  ice  might  have  been  assailed  by  a 
little  heavier  and  more  efficient  cleaver. 
The  Atlantic  reviewer  appears,  indeed,  to 
be  a  trifle  afraid,  not  to  say  ashamed,  of 
her  own  pioneership.  Tradition  would 
seem  to  be  furtively  reminding  her  that  she 
is  heading  a  revolt  against  it.  And  there 
certainly  might  well  seem  a  kind  of  literary 
defiance  in  any  defence  of  Ouida.  She  has 
stood  so  long  as  a  pariah  that  to  give  her 
boldly  a  few  credentials  of  respectabilty,  as 
it  were,  might  in  a  temperament  by  no 
means  timid  still  require  some  courage.  I 
would  not  even  appear  to  suggest  that  Miss 
Preston  has  doubted  her  own  assertions 
concerning  this  great  romancist,  whenever 
they  have  been  of  a  favorable  turn.  But  it 
has  struck  me  that  she  has  almost  doubted 
the  advisability  of  her  own  position  as  so 
distinct  a  non-conformist.  One  smiles  to 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  1 5 1 

remember  the  ridiculous  abuse  poured  upon 
Ouida  in  England  ever  since  somewhere 
about  the  year  1863.  She  has  probably 
afforded  more  opportunity  for  the  callow 
undergraduate  satirist  than  any  author  of 
the  present  century.  I  do  not  maintain  that 
she  was  at  first  the  recipient  of  an  unde 
served  ridicule.  But  afterward  this  ridi 
cule,  because  of  the  radical  change  in  her 
work,  became  pitiably  tell-tale  ;  it  revealed 
that  aggravating  conservatism  in  those  who 
arraigned  her  which  had  its  root  in  either 
a  very  unjust,  hasty  and  perfunctory  skim 
ming  of  her  later  books,  or  an  entire  igno 
rance  of  their  contents.  She  undoubtedly 
began  all  wrong.  There  are  some  liberal 
and  high-minded  people  with  whom  the 
follies  and  faults  of  such  stories  as  "  Gran- 
ville  de  Vigne"  and  "  Idalia"  have  wrought 
so  disastrously  that  all  their  future  impres 
sions  have  been  colored  by  these  uncon 
querable  associations.  It  seems  to  me  that 
Mr.  Hawthorne  is  one  of  these,  and  I  am 
certain  that  the  late  Bayard  Taylor  was 
one.  When  "Ariadne"  appeared,  only  a 
year  or  two  before  Taylor's  lamentably  ill- 
timed  death,  he  wrote  concerning  that  en 
chanting  tale  in  the  New  York  Tribune  with 
a  sternness  of  condemnation  most  regret- 


1 5*2  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

table,  as  I  thought,  in  so  alert  and  vigorous 
an  intellect.  When  I  expressed  to  Taylor 
my  surprise  that  he  should  have  seen  noth 
ing  beautiful  or  poetic  in  "Ariadne,"  he 
frankly  declared  to  me  that  he  saw  nothing 
commendable  in  any  line  that  Ouida  had 
written.  But  many  of  her  lovely  sketches 
had  already  appeared,  and  that  exquisite 
idyl,  "  Bebee,  or  The  Two  Little  Wooden 
Shoes,"  with  its  tearful  tenderness  and  its 
fiery,  gloomy,  piercing  finale  of  passion,  had 
given  proof  of  its  author's  wakening  force 
and  discipline. 

Miss  Preston's  chief  error,  I  should  affirm, 
has  been  her  somewhat  careless  huddling 
together  of  all  Ouida's  works  and  passing 
criticism  upon  them  en  bloc,  without  more 
than  vague  indication  of  the  different  peri 
ods  in  which  they  were  produced,  or  the 
various  stages  of  development  which  they 
exhibit.  This  talented  lady,  however  she 
is  to  be  praised  for  taking  Ouida  seriously 
(and  that  is  a  fine  thing  to  have  done  at  all, 
when  it  meant  the  flinging  down  of  a 
gauntlet  before  disparagement  no  less  in 
sensate  than  cruel),  has  still  failed  in  taking 
Ouida  half  seriously  enough.  I  read  with 
astonishment  in  the  Atlantic  review,  for  ex 
ample,  an  extended  notice  of  "  Idalia," 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  1 5  3 

while  such  vastly  better  work  as  "  Folle- 
Farine"  or  "  In  Maremma"  was  quietly  ig 
nored.  Candidly,  I  hold  that  Miss  Preston's 
entire  consideration  of  Ouida  has  been  as 
limited,  unsatisfactory  and  insufficient  as, 
when  all  circumstantial  points  are  duly 
recognized,  it  has  been  kindly,  generous, 
and  honorable. 

I  have  already  expressed  it  as  my  con 
viction  that  Ouida  began  very  badly.  She 
indeed  began  as  badly  as  any  genius  did 
whose  early  and  subsequent  accomplish 
ments  in  English  letters  are  now  known  to 
us  and  may  be  read  side  by  side  with  hers. 
Byron  certainly  showed  far  less  power  at 
the  commencement  of  his  career  than  she 
did  at  the  commencement  of  hers  ;  and 
those  who  possess  my  own  deep  veneration 
for  the  grandeur  of  Tennyson's  poetry  at 
its  highest  heights  may  have  read  some  of 
the  deplorable  stanzas,  modelled  on  a  sort 
of  hideous  German-English  plan,  which 
have  thus  far,  I  believe,  escaped  the  savage 
exposures  of  even  his  most  merciless  Amer 
ican  publishers.  I  find  myself  involuntarily 
tracing  a  parallel  between  the  young  Ouida 
and  the  young  poets  who  preceded  her  by 
a  few  decades  more  or  less.  But  this  tend 
ency  easily  explains  itself,  since  she  is  pre- 


1 54  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

eminently  a  poet,  notwithstanding  hergreat 
gifts  for  romantic  narration.  The  rhythmij 
faculty  has  been  denied  her,  and  for  this 
reason  she  probably  has  written  so  much 
of  that  "  poetical  prose"  which  the  average 
Englishman  has  been  taught  to  hold  in 
such  phlegmatic  contempt.  If  "  Granville 
de  Vigne"  had  appeared  in  rhymes  as  clever 
and  as  prolix  as  Owen  Meredith's  "  Lucile," 
it  would  doubtless  have  won  a  place  far 
above  that  bright,  hybrid,  pseudo-poetic 
popular  favorite.  But  "  Granville  de  Vigne" 
has  won  no  place,  nor  has  "  Strathmore," 
nor  has  kt  Idalia,"  nor  has  ''  Puck,"  nor  even 
"  Chandos,"  pronounced  as  was  the  dawn 
ing  change  it  exhibited.  These  works  all 
mean  a  palaeozoic  age  for  Ouida  :  her  ex 
traordinary  powers  were  yet  struggling  for 
worthier  expression.  They  are  valuable 
alike  in  their  absurdities  and  their  better 
revelations,  though  the  latter  shone  fitful, 
indeterminate,  and  often  distressingly  tran 
sient.  The  superabundance  of  "  color,"  the 
weight  of  adjective  piled  on  adjective,  the 
lavish  display  of  an  erudition  as  volumin 
ous  as  it  was  sometimes  erratic,  the  mere 
tricious  defects  of  style,  the  collet  moils 
superfluity  of  rhetoric,  the  impossible  and 
ludicrous  descriptions  of  luxury — all  this 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  1 5  5 

has  become  with  many  of  us  in  a  manner 
comically  classic.  Ouida's  early  heroes, 
with  their  fleet  Arabian  steeds,  their  lordly 
lineage,  their  fabulous  wealth  or  sentiment 
ally  picturesque  poverty,  their  fatal  fascina 
tions  for  women  and  their  deadly  muscular 
developments  for  men  —  Ouida's  early 
heroes,  I  say,  have  grown  as  representative 
of  the  overwrought  in  fiction  as  those  of 
Byron  have  grown  representative  of  like  in 
discretion  in  poetry.  Nor  are  these  faults 
of  her  youth  entirely  outlived  by  Ouida. 
"  Fine  writing"  is  still  occasionally  her 
bane,  though  it  becomes  less  and  less  so 
with  each  new  book  she  now  produces.  Her 
vocabulary  has  always  been  as  copious  as 
the  sunlight  itself,  and  her  style  is  at  pres 
ent  a  direct,  flexible  and  notably  elegant 
one.  She  has  been  accused  of  "cramming," 
and  of  making  a  little  knowledge  do  ser 
vice  for  much.  But  only  very  illiterate 
people  could  believe  such  a  masquerade 
possible  with  her.  She  is  indisputably  a 
woman  of  spacious  and  most  diversified 
learning,  though  she  has  not  always  known 
either  the  art  of  modestly  concealing  this 
fact,  or  that  of  letting  it  speak  spontane 
ously  and  judiciously  for  itself.  Still, 
pedantry  is  not  seldom  the  attribute  of  a 


156  The  Truth  about  Quid  a. 

greatly  cultivated  mind.  We  have  seen 
this  in  the  case  of  George  Eliot,  whose  ad 
mirers  will  perhaps  feel  like  mobbing  me 
when  they  read  that  I  think  her  genius  in 
many  ways  inferior  to  that  of  Ouida.  And 
yet  I  grant  that  to  a  very  large  extent  she 
possesses  what  Ouida  was  for  a  long  time 
almost  totally  without — taste,  artistic  pa 
tience,  and  that  surest  of  preservatives,  a 
firm  and  chiselled  style. 

"Under  Two  Flags"  may  be  said  to  have 
recorded  a  turning-point  in  this  unique 
writer's  career.  It  was  full  of  the  same 
tinselled  and  lurid  hyperboles  which  had 
made  so  many  readers  of  the  extraordinary 
series  hold  up  horrified  hands  in  the  past. 
But  itsgaudiness  and  opulence  of  language 
were  suited  to  its  Algerian  locale^  and  the 
drowsy  palms  and  deep-blue  African  skies 
of  which  it  spoke  to  us  accorded  with  the 
tropic  tendencies  of  its  phrases.  It  dis 
played  a  wondrous  acquaintance,  also,  with 
military  life  in  Algeria,  and  for  this  reason 
amazed  certain  observers  of  an  altered 
mise  en  scene  in  a  novelist  whom  they  had 
believed  only  able  to  misrepresent  the 
patrician  circles  of  England.  But  "Under 
Two  Flags"  amazed  by  its  perusal  from 
still  another  cause.  It  contained  one  of 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  157 

the  most  thrillingly  dramatic  episodes  ever 
introduced  into  any  novel  of  the  school  to 
which  such  episodes  belong,  namely,  the 
wild  desert  journey  of  Cigarette,  the  vivan- 
diere,  bearing  a  pardon  for  the  condemned 
soldier  whom  she  loves.  Cigarette  reaches 
the  place  of  execution  just  in  time  to  fling 
herself  upon  her  lover's  breast  and  save 
him  from  the  bullets  of  his  foes  by  dying 
under  them.  We  are  apt  nowadays  to  look 
askance  at  such  heroic  incidents,  and  the 
word  "unnatural"  easily  rises  to  our  lips 
as  we  do  so.  Perhaps  it  rises  there  too 
easily.  Self-sacrifice  of  the  supreme  kind 
has  gone  out  of  fashion  in  modern  story 
telling,  and  by  a  tacit  surrender  we  have 
given  scenes  like  this,  with  aH  their  warm 
blooded  kinships,  to  the  domain  of  the 
theatre.  That  fiction  will  ever  care  to  re 
sume  her  slighted  prerogative,  the  thriving 
influence  of  Zola  and  his  more  moderate 
American  imitators  would  lead  us  to  believe 
improbable.  Still,  the  caprices  of  popular 
demand  lend  themselves  unwillingly  to 
prophecy.  One  fact,  however,  cannot  plaus 
ibly  be  contradicted:  the  theatre  has  not 
invested  her  gift  at  any  very  profitable  rate 
of  interest,  nor  justified  her  present  mono 
poly  of  all  that  is  stirring  in  romanticism. 


158  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

"Tricotrin,''  if  I  mistake  not,  was  the 
first  important  successor  of  "  Under  Two 
Flags,"  and  here  Ouida  gave  us  the  note 
worthy  proof  that  she  had  turned  her  at 
tention  toward  ideal  and  poetic  models.  I 
fear  it  must  be  chronicled  that  the  chaff  in 
<:  Tricotrin"  predominates  over  the  wheat. 
The  whole  story  is  not  seldom  on  stilts, 
and  we  often  lose  patience  with  the  hero 
as  more  of  &  poseur  than  of  the  demigod  he 
is  described.  The  entire  donnc'e  is  too  high- 
strung  for  its  nineteenth-century  concomi- 
itance.  We  feel  as  if  everybody  should 
wear  what  the  managers  of  theatres  would 
call  "  shape  dresses."  Ouida  still  tempts 
the  parodist ;  the  machinery  of  her  plot,  so 
to  speak,  almost  creaks  with  age,  now  and 
then  ;  her  personages  attitudinize  and  are 
often  tiresomely  verbose.  Tricotrin  does 
so  much  with  the  aid  of  red  fire  and 
a  calcium  that  his  glaringly  melodramatic 
death  becomes  almost  a  relief  in  the  end. 
And  yet  the  book  scintillates  with  brilliant 
things,  and  if  it  had  been  written  with  an 
equal  power  in  French  instead  of  English, 
might  have  passed  for  the  work  of  Victor 
Hugo.  There  is  a  great  deal  about  it  that 
the  passionate  and  democratic  soul  of  the 
French  poet  would  have  cordially  delighted 


The  Truth  about  Onida.  \  59 

in.  It  belongs  to  the  same  quality  of  in 
spiration  that  produced  "Notre  Dame  de 
Paris,"  %<  L'Homme  Qui  Rit,"  and  "Fan- 
tine."  But  there  have  always  been  English 
people  who  have  laughed  at  Hugo's  tales, 
and  in  much  the  same  spirit  Ouida's  coun 
trymen  laughed  at  the  itinerant,  commu 
nistic  Tricotrin,  with  his  superb  beauty,  his 
pastoral  abstemiousness  and  purity,  his  al 
truistic  philanthropy,  his  forsworn  birth 
right  of  an  English  earl,  his  wide  clientele  of 
grimy  and  outcast  worshippers,  and  his  as 
tounding  range  of  opportunity  to  appear 
just  in  the  nick  of  time  and  succor  the  op 
pressed.  Far  more  daring  license  with  the 
manipulation  of  fact,  however,  has  been 
taken  by  the  elder  Dumas  and  others. 
Ouida's  book  came  about  thirty  or  forty 
years  too  late  for  sober  critical  acceptance 
in  her  own  country,  and  it  was  of  a  kind 
that  her  own  country  has  never  perma 
nently  accepted.  Still,  it  revealed  her  per 
haps  for  the  first  time  as  an  original  power 
in  letters.  She  had  struck  in  it  the  one 
note  which  has  always  been  most  positively 
her  own  ;  she  had  told  the  world  that  she 
was  a  prose-poet  of  dauntless  imagination 
and  solitary  excellence.  As  an  idealist  in 
prose  fiction  no  English  writer  has  thus  far 


160  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

approached  her.  "Tricotrin"  would  not 
alone  have  made  her  what  she  is.  It  re 
mained  for  her  to  improve  upon  this  re 
markable  effort,  and  to  fling  up,  like  some 
tract  of  land  under  convulsive  disturbance, 
peaks  that  for  height  and  splendor  far  out- 
rivalled  it.  The  valleys  in  her  literary 
landscape  are  sometimes  low  indeed  ;  a  few 
even  have  noxious  growths  in  them,  and 
are  haunted  by  foolish  wills-o'-the-wisp. 
Such,  I  should  say,  are  her  first  few  sus 
tained  works,  like  "  Granville  de  Vigne  " 
and  u  Strathmore."  Nor  has  she  always 
clung  to  the  talisman  by  which  she  after 
ward  learned  to  invoke  her  best  creations. 
At  times  she  has  seemed  to  cast  this  tem 
porarily  away,  as  in  "  Friendship "  and 
"A  Winter  City."  I  have  now  reached,  as 
it  were,  my  one  sole  conclusion  regarding 
her  abilities  at  their  finest  and  securest 
outlook.  She  is  an  idealist,  and  that  she 
should  have  determinedly  remained.  The 
foibles  of  modern  society  are  no  subjects 
for  either  her  dissection  or  her  satire.  She 
has  never  been  any  more  able  to  become  a 
Thackeray  or  a  Dickens  than  they,  under 
any  conceivable  circumstances,  could  have 
become  Ouidas.  It  is  an  immense  thing 
for  a  writer  to  recognize  just  what  he  is 


The  Truth  about  Onida.  161 

capable  of  doing  best,  and  to  leave  all  the 
rest  alone  But  Ouida,  with  a  burning  un 
easiness,  has  continually  misunderstood  her 
own  noble  gifts.  With  an  eye  that  could 
look  mi  dim  meet  at  the  sun,  she  has  too 
often  grown  weary  of  his  beams.  Once 
sure  of  her  wings,  white  and  strong  as  they 
proved,  she  had  nothing  to  seek  except  the 
soft  welcome  of  the  air  for  which  they 
were  so  buoyantly  fitted.  But  no  :  she  has 
repeatedly  folded  them  and  walked  instead 
of  flying.  Birds  that  fly  with  grace  do  not 
often  walk  so.  She  is  a  poet,  and  she  has 
forgotten  this  truth  with  a  pertinacity 
which  has  been  a  deprivation  to  the  litera 
ture  of  her  time.  And  yet  for  several  years 
after  the  publication  of  "Tricotrin"  the 
idealist  was  most  hopefully  paramount  in 
all  that  she  did.  If  "  Folle-Farine"  had 
been  her  first  book  instead  of  her  sixth  or 
seventh,  it  would  have  made  even  the  Eng 
lish  blood  that  she  has  more  than  once  de 
clared  so  sluggish,  tingle  with  glad  appre 
ciation  of  its  loveliness.  The  change  in  her 
was  for  a  time  absolute  and  thorough. 
"  Folle-Farine  "  was  the  story  of  a  despised 
outcast  girl,  ignorant  and  unlettered,  yet 
with  a  soul  quick  to  estimate  and  treasure 
the  worth  and  meaning  of  beauty  wherever 


1 62  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

found.  It  is  all  something  which  the  real 
ists  would  pull  long  faces  or  giggle  at  as 
hopelessly  "highfalutin."  But  then  the 
realists,  when  they  ride  their  hobby  with  a 
particularly  martial  air,  are  inclined  quite 
to  trample  all  poetry  below  its  hoofs.  I 
don't  know  how  well  the  story  of  "  Folle- 
Farine  "  would  please  some  of  Balzac's  suc 
cessors,  but  I  am  sure  that  he  himself  would 
have  delighted  in  it.  The  girl's  infancy 
among  the  gypsies  and  subsequent  fierce 
persecution  at  the  hands  of  her  grandfather, 
Claudis  Flamma,  as  one  devil-begotten  and 
loathsome,  are  treated  with  an  intensity 
bordering  on  the  painful.  But  through  all 
the  youthful  anguish  and  martyrdom  of 
"  Folle-Farine "  there  flows  a  charming 
current  of  idyllic  feeling.  Such  passages 
as  these,  stamped  with  the  individuality 
of  Ouida,  meet  us  on  every  page  :  "  In 
one  of  the  most  fertile  and  fair  districts  of 
Northern  France  there  was  a  little  Norman 
town,  very,  very  old,  and  beautiful  exceed 
ingly  by  reason  of  its  ancient  streets,  its 
high  peaked  roofs,  its  marvellous  galle 
ries  and  carvings,  its  exquisite  grays  and 
browns,  its  silence  and  its  color,  and  its 
rich  still  life.  Its  centre  was  a  great  cathe 
dral,  noble  as  York  or  Chartres  ;  a  cathedral 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  163 

whose  spire  shot  to  the  clouds,  and  whose 
innumerable  towers  and  pinnacles  were  all 
pierced  to  the  day,  so  that  the  blue  sky  shone 
and  the  birds  of  the  air  flew  all  through 
them.  A  slow  brown  river,  broad  enough 
for  market-boats  and  for  corn-barges,  stole 
through  the  place  to  the  sea,  lapping  as  it 
went  the  wooden  piles  of  the  houses,  and 
reflecting  the  quaint  shapes  of  the  carvings, 
the  hues  of  the  signs  and  the  draperies,  the 
dark  spaces  of  the  dormer  windows,  the 
bright  heads  of  some  casement-cluster  pf 
carnations,  the  laughing  face  of  a  girl  lean 
ing  out  to  smile  on  her  lover." 

This  certainly  is  not  what  we  call  com 
pact  writing  ;  there  is  none  of  that  neat 
ness  and  trimness  about  it  which  bespeak 
the  deliberative  pen  or  the  compunctious 
eraser.  But  what  a  sensuous  and  winsome 
poetic  effect  does  it  produce  !  Few  writers 
can  afford  the  loose  clauses,  the  random 
laissez-aller,  of  Ouida.  She  sometimes 
abuses  her  assumed  privilege,  even  in  her 
most  authentic  moments — those,  I  mean, 
of  pure  imagination.  But  it  is  then  that 
the  superabundance  of  her  diction  and  its 
careless  yet  shining  fluency  hardly  ever  lose 
their  attractiveness.  It  is  then  that  the 
prolixity  to  which  I  have  before  referred  is 


164  Tke  Truth  about  Ouida. 

an  attribute  we  are  glad  to  pardon,  and 
love  while  we  are  doing  so.  The  argument 
of  "  Folle-Farine"  soon  ceases  to  deal  with 
the  sufferings  of  a  child.  The  poor  crea 
ture's  hopeless  love  for  the  cold  and  un 
consciously  heedless  Arslan,  bitter  at  the 
world's  indifference  to  those  magnificent 
gods  and  goddesses  that  he  still  goes  on 
painting  in  his  old  granary  among  water- 
docks  and  rushes  there  by  the  river-side, 
is  portrayed  with  unnumbered  masterly 
strokes.  And  afterward,  when  Folle-Farine 
tends  him  as  he  lies  stricken  with  fever  in 
a  Parisian  attic,  the  evil  temptings  of  the 
unprincipled  Sartorian,  as  they  offer  life 
and  fame  to  Arslan  at  a  price  whose  infamy 
cannot  be  questioned  by  her  who  hears 
them,  cloud  this  whole  narrative  with  a 
truly  terrible  gloom.  Folle-Farine's  immo 
lation  of  self  to  save  him  whom  she  wor 
ships,  and  her  final  self-inflicted  death  amid 
the  peace  of  the  river-reeds,  far  away  from 
the  loud  and  gilded  Paris  that  she  detests, 
are  the  very  darkest  essence  of  the  most 
absorbing  and  desolating  tragedy.  But 
the  poetry  of  this  whole  fervid  conception 
is  never  once  lost  sight  of.  We  close  the 
book  with  a  shudder,  as  if  we  had  been 
passing  through  the  twilight  of  some  magic 


TJie  Truth  about  Ouida.  165 

forest  where  the  dews  are  death.  But  we 
realize  how  matchless  is  the  sorcery  that 
can  so  sombrely  enchain  us,  and  long  after 
its  woful  spell  has  vanished  memory  vi 
brates  with  the  pity  and  sorrow  it  roused. 
"Ariadne"  is  another  masterpiece,  and 
not  unlike  the  foregoing  in  the  main  sources 
of  its  excessive  melancholy.  It  is  the  story 
of  a  feminine  spirit  swayed  by  an  unrecip 
rocated  love,  as  waywardly  given  as  lightly 
undervalued.  The  characters  are  without 
subtlety,  as  in  all  Ouida's  prose-poems. 
They  are  fascinating  or  repelling  shadows, 
whom  we  can  name  adoration,  egotism, 
fidelity,  as  we  please,  but  whose  eerie  jux 
tapositions,  whose  pictorial  and  half-illu 
sory  surroundings,  may  summon  sensations 
not  unlike  those  caused  in  us  by  some  ad 
mirable  yet  faded  fresco.  Never  was  Rome, 
in  all  her  grandeur  and  desuetude,  made 
the  more  majestic  background  of  a  heart's 
forlorn  history.  We  read  of  "  the  silver 
lines  of  the  snow  new-fallen  on  the  mount 
ains  against  the  deep  rose  of  dawn  ;"  of 
how  "  shadows  of  the  night  steal  softly  from 
off  the  city,  releasing,  one  by  one,  dome 
and  spire  and  cupola  and  roof,  till  all  the 
wide  white  wonder  of  the  place  ennobles 
itself  under  the  broad  brightness  of  full 


1 66  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

day  ;"  of  how  one  can  "  go  down  into  the 
dark  cool  streets,  with  the  pigeons  flutter 
ing  in  the  fountains,  and  the  sounds  of  the 
morning  chants  coming  from  many  a  church 
door  and  convent  window,  and  little  schol 
ars  and  singing- children  going  by  with 
white  clothes  on,  or  scarlet  robes,  as  though 
walking  forth  from  the  canvas  of  Botticelli 
or  Garofalo."  Sculpture  forms  what  one 
might  call  the  pervading  stimulus  of  this 
most  impassioned  story,  its  young  heroine 
being  a  sculptor  cf  inspired  powers.  In  the 
same  way  music  supplies  an  incessant  ac 
companiment  for  the  glowing  words  of 
'•  Signa."  The  youth  who  gives  his  name 
to  the  book  is  a  musician  who  possesses 
something  more  glorious  than  mere  apti 
tude.  Psychologically  it  is  the  reverse  of 
"Ariadne,"  delineating  the  torment  of  a 
man  who  puts  faith  in  the  most  shallow 
and  vacant  female  nature.  It  is  just  as 
plaintive,  just  as  haunting,  as  its  prede 
cessor,  but  it  is  simpler,  less  penetrative 
and  less  wide-circling,  less  Dantesque  in 
its  mournful  dignity  and  less  astonishing 
through  its  scholarship.  These  three  prose- 
poems,  "  Folle-Farine,"  "Ariadne"  and 
"  Signa,"  are  the  three  high  alps  of  Ouida's 
accomplishment  thus  far.  It  is  not  easy 


The  Truth  about  Oitida.  167 

to  praise  them  with  full  justice,  because 
unrestrained  panegyric  is  never  that,  and 
yet  the  lyrical  spontaneity  of  the  works 
themselves — their  evidence  of  having  won 
their  splendid  vitality  by  having  been 
poured  from  the  writer's  inmost  heart,  as 
warm  as  that  heart's  blood — would  tempt 
one  who  had  fully  felt  their  strength,  orig 
inality  and  greatness,  to  dip  his  pen  in  ex 
ceedingly  rosy  ink  and  then  shape  with  it 
very  ardent  encomiums.  I  am  far  from  call 
ing  these  memorable  undertakings  "idyls," 
as  Miss  Preston  terms  them,  or  in  any  man 
ner  agreeing  that  "  Friendship  "  ''marks  a 
distinct  intellectual  advance." 

Here  was  a  woman  who  had  shown  us  as 
no  one  else,  living  or  dead,  ever  had  shown 
in  precisely  the  same  way,  that  she  could 
make  the  sweetest  and  most  impressive 
poetry  do  service  as  the  medium  for  telling 
the  sweetest  and  most  impressive  of  tales. 
Mixed  with  their  Gothic  fantasy  there  was 
something  Homeric  in  these  three  volumes 
which  I  have  before  named.  There  were 
no  touches  that  reminded  us  at  all  of  the 
modern  novel.  Each  had  its  separate 
aesthetic  haze  clinging  about  it,  and  a  golden 
haze  this  was,  in  every  case.  With  only  a 
few  changes  here  and  there,  the  atmosphere 


1 68  The  Truth  about  On  iff  a. 

of  each  story  might  have  been  made  Greek, 
or  even  Egyptian.  The  delights  or  horrors 
of  life  were  put  most  strikingly  under  our 
vision;  but  the  details  of  life,  the  routine 
of  things  au  jour  le  jour,  the  trifling  modes 
and  customs  of  mortality,  as  it  pursues  its 
whims,  its  vices,  its  flirtations,  its  amours, 
its  divorce-suits,  all  remained  remote  and 
unconsidered.  The  glamour  of  dream  clung 
to  every  character  and  event.  The  joys  and 
miseries  outrolled  before  us  were  as  abstract 
and  aloof,  when  viewed  with  relation  to  our 
morning  mail  or  our  menaced  butcher's- 
bill,  as  the  loves  of  Paris  and  Helen  in  the 
Iliad,  or  of  Ulysses  and  Calypso  in  the 
Odyssey.  These  three  enticing  stories  no 
more  concerned  our  bread-and-butter-get 
ting  existences  of  prosaic  actuality  than 
they  concerned  the  wash  of  tides  at  either 
pole.  We  turned  their  glowing  leaves  to 
escape  from  our  own  silent  quarrel  with 
realities  rather  than  to  meet  the  monoto 
nous  recurrence  of  them  either  photographed 
painstakingly  or  sketched  felicitously.  In 
other  words,  we  gave  ourselves  up  to  the 
alternately  gentle  or  stormy  wizardries  of 
a  poet,  contented  in  the  oblivion  thus  be 
gotten  for  decorated  statistics  of  the  annal 
ist  or  placid  vivisections  of  the  surgeon. 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  169 

I  am  aware  that  all  such  departure  from 
his  cherished  modern  standards  must  at 
once  be  tyrannously  cried  down  as  a  bore 
by  that  self-satisfied  arbiter,  the  average 
reader  of  to-day.  Perhaps  Ouida  felt  some 
necessity  of  propitiating  this  multiform 
custodian  of  profit  and  loss.  It  may  have 
been  that  her  publishers  told  her,  with  that 
sincere  sadness  born  of  financial  depression, 
how  much  handsomer  had  been  the  "  re 
turns"  from  '•  Strathmore"  and  "  Chandos" 
than  from  "  Ariadne"  or  "  Signa."  Be  this 
as  it  may,  Ouida  forsook  her  new  gods,  and, 
except  in  the  composition  of  some  exquisite 
short  pieces  which  recalled  the  purity,  the 
human  breadth  and  the  past  star-like  ra 
diance  of  **  A  Provence  Rose,"  "A  Dog  of 
Flanders"  and  "The  Ntirnberg  Stove,"  I 
do  not  know  of  her  having  ever  again  hewn 
her  statues  from  the  same  flawless  Pentelic 
marble. 

But  the  resumption  of  her  old  more  ma 
terialistic  task — that  of  writing  novels 
which  should  reflect  the  doings  and  misdo 
ings  of  her  own  century — she  was  now  pre 
pared  to  undertake  with  a  much  firmer 
hand  and  with  an  unquestionably  chastened 
sense  of  old  delinquencies.  The  tale 
"  Friendship"  may  be  said  to  commemorate 


170  The  Truili  about  Quid  a. 

this  unfortunate  transition.  It  marks  the 
third  distinct  change  in  Ouida's  mental 
posture  toward  her  public.  It  is  to  me  a 
descent  and  not  an  elevation,  and  yet  I 
freely  concede  that  the  novelist  rediviva  was 
in  every  way  superior  to  the  novelist  who 
lived  and  rhapsodized  before.  In  "  Friend 
ship"  we  see  much  of  the  flare  and  glare 
once  thrown  upon  every-day  occurrences 
tempered  to  a  far  more  tolerable  light. 
Deformity  often  takes  the  lines  of  just  pro 
portion,  and  not  seldom  of  amiable  sym 
metry  as  well.  Miss  Preston  praises 
"  Friendship"  as  pre-eminently  readable  in 
every  part,  and  here  I  should  again  differ 
from  her,  since  in  my  judgment  the  book 
contains  a  great  deal  of  insufferable  tedium. 
Ouida's  worst  fault  as  a  stylist  is  here  laid 
tormentingly  bare.  She  harps  with  such 
stress  of  repetition  upon  the  guilty  bondage 
of  Prince  Icris  to  Lady  Joan  Challoner  that 
the  perpetual  circumlocution  makes  a  kind 
of  maelstrom  in  which  interest  becomes  at 
last  remorselessly  swallowed.  It  has  been 
stated  that  incidents  and  characters  in 
"Friendship"  were  taken  from  Ouida's  own 
life,  and  that  Lady  Joan  Challoner's  name 
conceals  one  belonging  to  a  foe  of  the  au 
thor.  Whether  this  report  be  true  or  false, 


Tkc  Truth  about  Ouida.  171 

we  resent  the  almost  maliciously  periphras 
tic  style  in  which  we  are  told  again  and 
again  that  Lady  Joan  was  the  jailer  of  loris 
and  watched  him  struggle  in  vain  with  the 
gyves  of  his  own  sin.  To  have  a  nature  of 
the  most  detestable  selfishness  described 
over  and  over  till  we  are  familiar  with  its 
meanest  impulse,  its  narrowest  spite,  re 
sembles  being  seated  by  a  person  of  repul 
sive  physiognomy  in  a  chamber  lined  with 
mirrors.  The  reduplications  become  un 
bearable  to  us-,  till  we  take  the  only  feasible 
course  for  avoiding  them:  we  go  into  an 
other  apartment.  Still,  in  the  present  case, 
I  did  not  go  into  another  apartment;  I  fin 
ished  "Friendship," and  received  from  it  an 
impression  as  vivid  as  disagreeable.  Cest 
le  ton  qui  fait  la  musique,  and  this  story,  not 
withstanding  its  eternity  of  repetitions, 
appeared  to  me  told  in  a  querulous,  railing 
voice  which  robbed  it  of  charm.  But  it 
evinces  a  most  undeniable  improvement  in 
method.  The  sentences  are  terser  and 
crisper  than  in  those  other  adolescent  nov 
els,  and  the  syntax  is  no  longer  straggling 
and  hazardous.  Of  a  certain  redundancy 
Ouida  has  never  wholly  rid  herself.  The 
effort  to  do  so  is  manifest  in  her  later  books, 
but  it  still  remains  a  weakness  with  her  to 


1/2  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

tell  us  the  same  thing  a  number  of  times, 
and  with  only  a  comparative  alteration  of 
phraseology.  Still,  no  one — not  even  Bal 
zac  himself  —  has  a  more  succinct,  dry, 
poignant  way  of  putting  epigram.  It  seems 
to  me  that  she  is  without  humor  ;  her  fun 
inevitably  stings  as  wit  alone  can  do  ;  that 
soft  phosphorescent  play  of  geniality  which 
would  try  to  set  its  reflex  gleam  in  the 
stony  gaze  of  a  gorgon,  appears  quite  un 
known  to  her.  She  has  been  wise,  too,  in 
not  cultivating  humor,  for  it  is  something 
which  must  fall  upon  a  writer  from  heaven  : 
he  might  as  well  try  and  train  himself  into 
having  blue  eyes  instead  of  black.  But 
Ouida  has  trained  many  of  her  qualities,  and 
the  self-search  with  which  she  has  done  so 
has  betokened  the  most  scourge-like  rigors. 
The  novelist  in  her  is  to  me  all  a  matter  of 
talent  vigilantly  guarded  and  nurtured  ; 
the  poetic  part  of  her — the  part  to  which 
we  are  indebted  for  three  supreme  achieve 
ments — could  not  have  helped  delivering 
its  beautiful  message.  Afterward  Ouida 
remembered  that  she  was  somebody  quite 
outside  of  what  one  would  call  a  genius  — 
that  she  was  a  woman  of  enormously  ver 
satile  information,  and  that  the  possibility 
of  her  writing  novels  which  would  excite  a 


T/u   Truth  about  Ouida.  173 

great  deal  of  public  attention  could  scarcely 
be  overestimated.  Beyond  doubt  she  had 
now  reached  a  state  of  dexterity  as  regarded 
mere  craftsmanship  which  thoroughly 
eclipsed  the  crudity  of  former  times.  But 
just  as  she  had  been  raw  and  experimental 
in  a  way  quite  her  own.  so  was  she  now 
adroit,  self-restrained  and  professional  with 
a  similar  freshness. 

"Moths"  came  next,  and  was  a  book 
sought  and  commented  upon,  admired  and 
execrated,  from  St.  Petersburg  to  San  Fran 
cisco.  Of  all  her  novels,  this  is  perhaps 
the  one  which  has  brought  her  the  greatest 
number  of  readers  in  what  may  be  set  down 
as  the  third  period  of  her  singular  celebrity. 
It  is  filled  with  the  most  drastic  interest 
for  even  the  most  jaded  and  ennuyc  exam 
iner.  The  story  is  the  perfection  of  enter 
tainment,  of  diversion.  Its  sarcastic  scorn 
of  fashionable  frailties  and  flippancies  even 
surpasses  that  which  made  "  Friendship" 
notorious.  Social  life  among  the  most 
aristocratic  people  of  Europe  is  drawn  so 
sumptuously  and  prismatically  that  with 
out  ever  having  enjoyed  the  honor  of  din 
ing  or  supping  with  princes  and  duchesses, 
we  still  own  to  a  secret  revolt  against  the 
verisimilitude  of  their  recorded  pastimes 


Truth  about  Oitida. 


and  dissipations.  In  u  Moths,"  as  in  all  her 
purely  fictional  and  unpoetic  work,  Ouida 
gives  us  the  belief  that  she  is  flying  her 
kite  entirely  too  high,  that  she  is  too  greatly 
enamoured  of  the  rank  and  titles  of  her 
dukes  and  earls,  that  the  European  beau 
monde,  as  an  idea,  has  too  bewilderingly  in 
toxicated  her  fancy.  As  Balzac  delighted 
in  letting  us  know  the  exact  number  of 
francs  per  annum  possessed  by  almost 
every  member  of  his  Come  die  Huwaine,  so 
Ouida  loves  to  tell  us  of  her  grandees'  cas 
tles  and  palaces,  of  their  fetes  and  musicales, 
of  their  steam-yachts  and  their  four-in- 
hands,  of  their  "private  physicians"  (it  is 
rarely  one  simple  physician  with  her),  of 
their  multitudinous  retainers  and  servants. 
Her  heroines  go  to  their  apartments  to 
dress,  and  in  so  doing  give  themselves  up 
to  their  "women:"  it  is  seldom  that  any 
one  of  them  is  humbly  enough  placed  to 
have  merely  a  single  femme  de  chambre.  All 
the  horses  are  blooded  animals,  all  the 
jewels  priceless,  all  the  repasts  miracles  of 
gastronomy,  all  the  ladies'  toilets  royally 
costly.  Saloons  and  boudoirs  and  bed 
chambers  are  adorned  with  wonders  of 
modern  art,  on  canvas  or  in  marble,  in 
tapestry  or  bric-a-brac,  in  panellings  or 


The  Truth  about  Oiiida.  175 

frescos.  Nearly  every  new  book  that  she 
writes  is  a  sort  of  edition  de  luxe  of  itself. 
I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  she  does  not 
smile  at  the  dazzling  glories  which  she 
evokes,  while  continuing  to  spread  them 
before  us  with  a  secret  conviction  that  they 
will  allure  hundreds  and  even  thousands, 
though  they  repel  tens  and  twenties,  of 
those  whom  they  confront.  What  to  many 
refined  observers  may  have  seemed  a  streak 
of  trivial  childishness  in  her  may  be,  after 
all,  a  shrewder  cleverness  than  these  ac 
credit  her  with.  For  Ouida  is  superlatively 
clever  ;  indeed,  it  may  be  added  by  those 
whom  none  of  her  sham  glitterings  have 
blinded  to  the  genuineness  of  her  actual 
gold,  that  she  is  lamentably  clever.  Had 
she  thought  less  of  a  certain  transient  ap 
plause  which  writers  incomparably  beneath 
her  may  win,  she  might  much  sooner  have 
attained  that  firm  fame  during  her  lifetime 
which  her  death  alone  will  now  create.  In 
"  Moths"  the  cleverness  to  which  I  have 
alluded  is  everywhere  apparent.  She  has 
made  it  a  story  that  the  shop-girl  or  the 
dry-goods  clerk  may  read  with  thrills  and 
tears.  Vera's  horrible  misfortune  in  hav 
ing  been  sold  by  her  mother  to  the  brutish 
Russian  prince  admits  of  no  misinterpreta- 


1/6  Tkc  Tntt/i  about  Oitida. 

tion.  The  vast  command  of  wealth  and 
the  lofty  station  which  now  follow  for 
the  dreamy  and  statuesque  heroine  are  skil 
fully  blended  with  her  love  for  the  brilliant 
marquis-tenor  Correze  and  the  distressing 
captivity  of  her  jewelled  chains.  There  is 
a  strong  suggestion  of  the  "  penny  dread 
fuls  "  in  the  whole  entourage  of  the  tale, 
with  Vera's  anguished  heart  beating  under 
robes  of  velvet  and  her  tortured  brain 
throbbing  under  coronets  of  gems.  But  it 
is  immeasurably  above  the  vulgarity  of 
those  gaudy  and  often  mawkish  serials. 
Its  pathos  is  intense,  and  its  continuous 
intervals  of  pure  poetry  are  undeniable.  It 
is  dramatic,  too,  in  the  very  strictest  sense, 
and  its  adaptation  for  the  English  stage 
was  naturally  to  be  expected.  As  for  what 
the  moralists  would  call  its  "lesson,"  I 
should  affirm  that  to  be  exempt  from  the 
least  chance  of  misconstruction.  Like  all 
these  later  stories  of  Ouida's,  "  Moths  "  has 
been  denounced  as  grossly  unwholesome 
for  young  minds.  I  do  not  know  about 
young  minds  gaining  benefit  from  its  pe 
rusal  ;  I  should  imagine  that,  like  many 
things  which  minors  do  not  understand,  its 
effect  upon  them  might  be  harmful,  and 
even  noxious.  So  is  the  effect  of  rich 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  177 

dishes  and  indigestible  fruit  upon  young 
stomachs,  while  stronger  gastric  juices 
sustain  no  hurt  from  their  consumption. 
It  is  time  that  this  outcry  against  what  is 
evil  in  literature  for  young  minds  should 
be  silenced  by  a  sensible  consideration  of 
how  potent  or  impotent  are  the  defences 
reared  by  educators  and  guardians.  It 
would  surely  be  unwise  to  cut  down  all  the 
apple-orchards  because  in  those  days  which 
precede  autumn's  due  ripeness  multitudes 
of  foraging  children  have  brought  on  them 
selves  avoidable  colics.  If  the  colics  sleep 
in  the  undeveloped  apples,  and  mischiev 
ous  little  Adams  and  Eves  will  taste  thereof, 
a  stout  wall  and  an  ill-tempered  dog  behind 
it  are  the  only  trustworthy  preventives 
against  their  temerity.  To  claim  that 
Ou Ida's  works  are  not  healthful  reading 
for  those  whose  youth  makes  the  mere 
mention  of  evil  and  vice  deleterious  be 
cause  in  all  their  bad  meanings  unexplain- 
able,  is  to  claim,  I  think,  that  any  author 
may  be  misunderstood  provided  the  men 
tality  of  his  public  is  sufficiently  meagre 
for  his  miscomprehension.  The  decried 
"  immorality"  of  Ouida  I  have  never  at  all 
been  able  to  perceive.  I  ignore  the  ques 
tion  of  her  immoral  purport  in  the  prose- 


1/8  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

poems  heretofore  treated.  There  such  a 
discussion  wears  colors  of  absurdity  ;  it  is 
almost  as  if  some  one  should  assure  me 
Milton's  Satan  was  a  matter  of  shame  to 
his  portrayer.  But  with  regard  to  all 
Ouida's  novels  of  what  I  have  called  her 
third  period,  the  accusation  (and  it  is  a 
very  wide  accusation)  becomes  at  least 
worthy  of  attention.  Ouida  has  no  hesita 
tion  in  referring  to  relations  between  the 
sexes  which  common  conventionality  has 
reprobated  and  condemned.  A  great  deal 
of  her  more  modern  work  deals  frankly  with 
this  theme.  Sometimes  it  is  dealt  with  in 
tones  and  terms  of  a  most  scathing  irony  ; 
again  it  is  handled  with  mixed  disdain  and 
ridicule  ;  and  still  again  it  is  openly  grieved 
over  and  deplored.  But  I  fail  to  find  a 
single  instance  of  the  vileness  of  adultery 
being  either  condoned  or  alleviated,  f  To 
choose  an  uncanny  subject  is  very  different 
from  handling  the  subject  with  the  grosser 
motive  of  extenuating  what  is  base  in  itT) 
I  should  assert  that  Ouida  never — abso 
lutely  never — does  the  latter.  There  are 
one  or  two  scenes  in  "  Moths"  which  have 
a  shocking  nudity  of  candor.  But  they 
are  never  dwelt  upon  for  the  purpose  of 
pandering  to  any  despicable  taste  in  the 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  1/9 

reader.  They  form  a  link  in  the  dolorous 
chain-work  of  the  heroine's  ills,  and  they 
are  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  render 
ing  her  final  step  of  rebellion  against 
the  world's  legally  imposed  pressure  more 
pardonably  consistent  with  the  whole 
scheme  of  her  unsolicited  mishaps.  While 
revealing  what  she  believes  to  be  low  and 
contemptible  in  society  of  to-day,  Ouida 
employs  merely  the  weapons  which  Juvenal 
himself  made  use  of.  She  is  never  sympa 
thetic  with  wrong-doing,  any  more  than 
the  Latin  poet  was  in  fulminating  against 
Roman  decadence.  Witness,  as  an  exam 
ple  of  this  impersonal  sincerity,  her  un 
sparing  denunciations  hurled  at  such  char 
acters  as  Lady  Joan  in  "Friendship''  and 
Lady  Dolly  in  "  Moths."  How  cordially 
she  seems  to  detest  the  artificiality  of  ev 
ery  mauvais  sujet  she  describes  !  She  lays 
bare  alike  the  sordid  and  the  sensual  aim; 
she  pierces  with  her  shafts  of  wit  and  hate 
the  adventurer,  the  hypocrite,  the  scandal 
monger,  the  titled  voluptuary,  the  menda 
cious  and  guileful  male  flirt,  the  modest- 
visaged  and  still  more  deceptive  intrigante. 
But  through  all  her  dame  macabre  of  ill- 
behaved  people  there  is  no  revelation  which 
mav  even  faintly  indicate  that  she  is  in  anv 


i8o  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

way  sympathetic  with  their  indiscreet  or 
reckless  caperings.  For  those  who  shout 
Ouida  down  as  abominable  because  she 
chooses  to  touch  the  abominable,  I  have 
no  answer.  All  that  point  of  view  merely 
involves  the  question  of  whether  the  abomi 
nable  can  be  touched  or  not  in  literature, 
provided  it  is  so  approached  and  so  grasped 
that  the  author  makes  its  mirk  and  stain 
seem  nothing  but  the  soilure  and  grossness 
which  they  really  are.  I  am  acquainted 
with  several  American  men  of  letters  who 
have  told  me  that  they  deeply  regret  the 
broad  public  distaste  for  so-called  "in 
decency"  in  novel-writing.  These  men 
have  already  written  novels  of  merit  and 
force,  but  they  greatly  desire  to  write  nov 
els  which  may  express  the  full  scope  and 
depth  of  life  as  they  see  and  feel  it.  They 
declare  themselves,  however,  debarred  from 
such  performance  by  the  stringent  edicts 
of  their  publishers  and  editors.  It  seems 
to  me  that  Ouida  has  quietly  contemned 
the  inclinations  of  her  publishers  and  edi 
tors.  She  has  chosen  to  tell  the  whole 
truth — not  as  Zola  tells  it,  but  as  George 
Sand  (whom  she  resembles  in  one  way  as 
much  as  she  resembles  Victor  Hugo  in 
another)  always  chose  uncompromisingly 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  181 

to  tell  it.  Her  gorgeousness  of  surround 
ing  has  made  her  perfectly  pure  and  refor 
matory  motive  dim  to  those  who  cannot 
eliminate  from  the  scum  and  reek  of  a  stag 
nant  pool  the  iridescence  filmed  there. 
Ouida  has  seen  the  rainbow  colors  close- 
clinging  to  such  malodorous  torpor  in 
human  society,  and  she  has  striven  to  re 
port  of  them  as  faithfully  as  of  the  brackish 
waters  below.  But  she  has  intensified 
their  baleful  tints.  She  has  made  the  er 
mine  that  wraps  her  sinful  potentates  too 
white  and  the  black  spots  which  indent 
this  ermine  too  inky.  She  is  and  has  al 
ways  been  incapable  of  saying  to  her  muse 
what  Mr.  Lowell  says  in  his  profound 
though  pietistic  poem,  "The  Cathedral:" 

'•"  Oh,  more  than  half-way  turn  that  Grecian  front 
Upon  me,  while  with  half-rebuke  I  spell, 
On  the  plain  fillet  that  confines  thy  hair 
In  conscious  bounds  of  seeming  unconstraint, 
The  Naught  in  overplus,  thy  race's  badge  !" 

No;  Ouida  determinedly  delights  in 
overplus,  and  when  one  thinks  of  her  muse 
at  all  it  is  of  a  harried  and  overtaxed  muse, 
with  feverish  imprecations  against  the  wear 
and  tear  to  which  divinity  has  been  heart 
lessly  subjected.  When  I  turn  toward  the 


1 82  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

novels  which  have  succeeded  "  Moths,"  I 
am  constrained  to  declare  Ouida  a  writer 
more  fertile  in  expedients  for  disillusioning 
her  most  loyal  adherents  than  any  other 
known  through  the  past  centuries  as  one 
deserving  the  name  of  a  genius.  ^She  is  so 
incontestably  a  genius,  however,  that  she 
can  go  on  committing  her  excesses  without 
alienating  her  leal  devotees.^  She  is  like 
some  monarch  confident  of  his  subjects' 
worship  while  he  crowns  himself  with  roses 
and  quaffs  wine  from  gold  beakers  to  the 
detriment  and  discontent  of  throngs  wait 
ing  at  his  gates.  There  are  no  throngs 
waiting  at  Ouida' s  gates,  however ;  or 
rather  the  throngs  are  her  entranced  read 
ers,  and  not  by  any  means  those  fastidious 
about  the  requirements  of  true  royalty. 
But  a  few,  knowing  her  grand  mind,  re 
gret  the  self-forgetfulness  to  which  it  has 
stooped. 

"In  Maremma"  startled  these  few,  as 
if  it  were  a  pledge  of  permanent  return 
among  the  classic  idealisms  which  have 
made  this  author's  best  right  to  assert  her 
self  one  of  the  greatest  figures  in  contem 
porary  literature.  And  "In  Maremma"  is 
a  tale  of  matchless  grace  and  sweetness. 
We  marvel  as  we  read  of  the  Italian  girl 


The  Trntli  about  Ouida.  183 

who  went  and  dwelt  in  the  Etruscan  tomb, 
loving  the  dead  whom  she  found  buried 
there,  and  finally  meeting  in  it,  by  a  most 
terrible  satire  of  circumstances,  him  who 
dealt  her  a  death-wound  of  passion  —  we 
marvel,  I  say,  as  we  read  of  this  delicious, 
free-souled,  innocent  kinswoman  to  Folle- 
Farine  and  Ariadne,  how  any  human  brain 
could  be  so  multiplex  and  many-shaded  as 
that  of  Ouida.  What  gulfs  of  difference 
separate  this  new  heroine  of  hers  from 
the  world-encompassed  and  society-beset 
beings  whom  she  has  so  recently  pictured  ! 
And  yet  for  a  time  the  novelist  has  dropped 
her  microscope  (often  so  foolishly  misem 
ployed)  and  the  poet  has  resumed  her 
neglected  lyre.  Their  old  notes  are  still 
struck  with  dulcet  harmony.  "  In  Marem- 
ma"  is  Ouida  again  at  her  loftiest  and 
most  authentic.  C  She  shows  in  it  her  old 
impetuous  desire  to  feel  with  and  for  the 
persecuted  and  maltreated  of  the  earth^)  I 
cannot  explain  why  it  should  not  be  ranked 
with  the  three  great  masterpieces  to  which 
I  have  already  made  such  enthusiastic 
reference.  Pehaps  it  should  be  so  ranked. 
If  there  is  any  excuse  for  depriving  it  of  a 
place  on  this  exquisite  list,  that  excuse 
must  be  found  in  its  more  earthy  raison 


184  The  Triith  about  Oiiida. 

d'etre  when  compared  with  the  almost  ethe 
real  spirituality  of  the  other  books. 

"Wanda,"  "Princess  Napraxine,"  and 
"  Othmar,"  coming  afterward  with  a  speed 
of  succession  that  showed  the  most  earnest 
industry,  have  given  proof  of  their  author's 
second  return  to  at  least  relative  realism. 
But  "Wanda"  is  a  romance  of  inexpressi 
ble  grace  and  force.  It  is  the  purest  ro 
mance:  to  speak  of  it  as  highly  colored 
is  like  calling  a  particularly  rich  sunset 
overfraught  with  glows  and  tints.  Judging 
it  by  the  modern  methods  of  the  "  natural 
istic"  school  is  to  pronounce  it  a  monstrosity 
of  art.  But  a  great  many  of  the  elder  Du- 
mas's  works  would  suffer  in  a  like  way  if  so 
considered,  and  nearly  every  prose  line  of 
Hugo's  would  fall  under  the  same  ban  of  dis 
favor.  "  Wanda"  is  a  great  romantic  story. 
Its  mode  of  telling  is  one  protracted  intensi 
ty.  Its  fires  burn  with  a  raging  and  heavy- 
odored  flame.  But  they  spring  forth,  for  all 
that,  with  no  ungoverned  madness.  They 
are  kindled  by  a  hand  desirous  of  their 
heat  and  curl  but  avoidant  of  their  reck 
less  outflow.  It  is  very  easy  to  denounce 
such  a  tale  as  vulgar.  In  these  final  years 
of  our  dying  century  all  literary  fierce 
ness  and  eagerness  of  this  kind  are  so  de- 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  185 

nounced.  If  romanticism  is  to  fade  away 
forever,  this  volcanic  bit  of  sensationalism 
is  undoubtedly  doomed.  But  its  sensation 
alism  is  of  the  sort  we  think  of  when  we 
remind  ourselves  of  "Monte  Christo  "  and 
"  Le  Juif  Errant."  The  haughty  Austrian 
countess,  with  her  prestige  of  stainless 
pedigree  and  her  imperial  self-esteem, — 
the  Russian  serf  who  has  concealed  his 
disgraceful  birth  under  a  stolen  title, — 
the  Hungarian  nobleman  of  almost  kingly 
rank  and  unblemished  honor,  who  con 
temptuously  lays  bare  the  shameful  brand 
of  imposture  in  his,  rival, — the  ancestral 
castle  in  the  Tyrol,  with  obeisant  swarms 
of  vassals  and  its  regal  household  admin 
istration, — all  these  are  the  old  materials 
and  manoeuvres  of  "  Strathmore "  and 
"  Idalia,"  but  presented  with  tenfold  more 
adroitness  and  savoir  faire.  The  secret  of 
reading  "Wanda"  with  the  keenest  relish 
for  its  exuberant  ardors  must  lie  in  com 
plete  forgetfulness  of  life  as  it  is  and  pious 
acceptance  of  life  as  it  might  be.  But  this 
is  the  test  by  which  nearly  all  romance  is 
tried.  I  have  no  space  to  treat  at  length 
of  "Princess  Napraxine  "  and  its  sequel, 
"  Othmar ;"  but  if  space  were  broadly  al 
lowed  me  I  could  state  of  them  no  more 


1 86  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

and  no  less  than  I  have  already  stated  of 
44  Wanda."  Princess  Napraxine  herself  is 
a  silly  and  patience-taxing  person.  Ouida's 
enemies  must  have  exulted  in  her  as  "  im 
moral,"  which  she  indeed  truly  would  be 
were  she  not  so  transparently  Icgere.  The 
chief  pity  is  that  so  fine  a  fellow  as  Othmar 
should  have  done  anything  except  disdain 
her.  But  both  these  two  last  novels  teem 
with  pages  of  description,  reflection,  ten 
derness,  sweetness  and  pathos  which  make 
the  fact  doubly  sad  that  Princess  Naprax 
ine  (a  pedant,  a  prig  and  a  strutting  com 
bination  of  silliness  and  bad  manners) 
should  ever  have  been  summoned  to  blot 
and  mar  them  by  her  paltry  charlatanisms. 
The  isolated  position  held  by  Ouida  in  an 
age  when  principles  and  theories  essentially 
opposite  to  her  own  have  seemingly  cap 
tured  the  world  of  letters,  would  of  itself 
point  to  endowments  both  rare  and  sturdy. 
That  she  has  pushed  her  way  into  renown 
against  obstacles  which  were  often  all  the 
more  stubborn  because  they  were  of  her 
own  rearing,  is  a  matter  for  serious  inquiry 
and  reflection  ;  but  that  she  should  have 
forced  from  certain  able  contemporaries 
who  originally  satirized  and  flouted  her, 
the  respect  and  homage  which  we  pay  to 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  187 

transcendent  competency,  is  a  still  more 
significant  truth.  It  means  that  Ouida 
must  mount  to  her  place  of  deserved 
state  in  spite  of  faults  which  would  shape 
for  many  another  writer  stairways  with  a 
wholly  different  direction.  But  there  has 
seldom  been  a  writer  whose  virtues  and 
vices  were  so  inextricably  blended.  For 
example,  the  very  people,  in  her  stories  of 
fashionable  society,  who  conduct  them 
selves  with  the  least  lucid  common-sense 
perpetually  spice  their  repartees  and  rail 
leries  with  a  most  engaging  wit.  We  may 
not  sympathize  with  what  they  say,  but 
we  are  keenly  amused  by  their  modes  of 
saying  it.  Disraeli,  whom  I  believe  Ouida 
sincerely  admires  as  a  novelist,  possesses 
all  her  love  for  palatial  filigree  and  por 
phyry  ;  yet  he  has  nothing  of  her  sprightli- 
ness,  crispness  and  verve  when  telling  us  of 
the  bores,  the  simpletons  and  the  few  passa 
bly  bright  people  who  make  up  "society." 
In  more  than  a  single  way  Ouida  is  be 
hind  her  time, — a  time  over  whose  rather 
barren-looking  levels  of  analysis  and  for 
mulation  she  flings  the  one  large  light  of  ro 
mance  now  visible.  In  this  latter  respect 
she  is,  indeed,  a  kind  of  glorious  anachro 
nism,  but  from  another  stand-point  her 


1 88  The  Truth  about  Ouida. 

grooves  of  thought  appear  painfully  nar 
row.  Occasionally  she  airs  a  contempt  for 
her  own  sex  which  makes  us  wish  that  with 
all  her  learning  she  knew  a  little  more  of 
the  dispassionate  repose  taught  by  science, 
and  of  its  hardy  feuds  against  reckless  as 
sumptions.  Ouida  has  made  declarations 
about  womankind  which  cause  us  to  won 
der  how  she  can  possibly  have  been  so  un 
fortunate  in  her  feminine  friends,  with  the 
thousands  of  chaste  and  lovable  women 
now  to  be  met  inside  the  limits  of  civiliza 
tion.  The  mauvaise  langue,  when  turned 
against  womanhood,  is  nowadays  classed 
among  effete  frivolities.  What  we  forgave 
at  the  beginning  of  the  century,  on  this 
head,  we  now  simply  dismiss  as  beneath 
anything  like  grave  heed.  The  day  has 
passed  when  such  Byronics  of  misogyny, 
however  gilt  with  flashing  sarcasms,  will 
either  delude  or  solace.  We  leave  "  sneers 
at  the  sex "  to  the  idleness  of  otherwise 
unemployed  club-loungers,  whose  growls 
are  innocuous.  Still,  in  justice  to  Ouida,  I 
should  deny  that  her  hatred  of  women  ever 
reached  anything  like  an  offensive  boiling- 
point  except  in  the  early  novel  "Puck," 
which  has  probably  done  as  much  to  feed 
the  spleen  of  her  enemies  as  any  work  to 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  189 

which  she  has  given  her  name.  In  subse 
quent  novels  she  has  created  many  women 
of  great  sweetness  and  high-mindedness,  as 
Etoile  in  "Friendship,"  Vera  in  " Moths," 
Wanda  in  the  story  of  that  title,  Yseult  - 
in  "  Princess  Napraxine,"  and  Damaris  in 
"Othmar."  Perhaps  a  depraved  and  sin 
ful  woman  is  more  execrable  than  a  man 
of  the  same  perverted  traits.  This  is  a 
question  open  to  debate,  though  Ouida 
somehow  suggests  an  opposite  judgment. 
It  is  true  that  the  majority  of  her  very  bad 
people  are  not  men,  though  she  is  capable, 
at  a  pinch,  of  some  darkly  Mephistophelian 
types. 

On  the  other  hand,  her  love  for  the  help 
less  and  the  unfriended,  her  profound  char 
ity  toward  the  down-trodden  and  destitute   £^_ 
and  neglected  among  humanity,  is  one  of 
the  several  bonds  between  her  own  genius    fa*  •$* 
and   that  of    Hugo — a  poet  whom   she  re-     / 
sembles   more  than  I  have  availed   myself 
of  opportunity  to  indicate.  fa— 

But  I  do  not  claim  that  these  words  about  ,J 
Ouida — though  I  have  called  them  "the 
truth,"  and  though,  as  regards  my  own 
most  sincere  faith  and  equally  sincere  un- 
faith,  I  so  insist  upon  calling  them — are  in 
any  degree  a  satisfactory  criticism.  How 


190  The  Truth  about  Quid  a. 

this  woman's  littleness  dies  into  a  shadow 
beside  her  imaginative  greatness,  a  real 
critic  will  hereafter  tell.  I  have  already 
stated  in  another  essay  my  fixed  belief 
concerning  the  scientific  method  which 
every  critic  who  at  all  merits  the  place  of 
one  should  infallibly  use.  For  myself,  I 
wish  to  be  thought  no  more  than  that 
purveyor  of  opinions  whom  I  have  previ 
ously  sentenced  with  some  emphasis.  I 
simply  print  what  I  think  and  believe  about 
Ouida,  and  I  have  declared  it  to  be  "the 
truth  "  only  as  I  see  and  realize  truth.  If 
it  be  falsehood,  I  shall  welcome  with  glad 
ness  any  actual  critic  who  so  proves  it. 
But  to  satisfy  me  of  my  own  errors  he 
must  not  by  any  means  deport  himself  in 
the  same  arbitrary  and  downright  fashion 
as  I  have  done.  He  must  bear  in  mind 
that  if  he  desires  to  convince  me  of  my  one- 
sidedness  he  must  not  oppose  it  with  dicta 
as  unfoundedly  hypothetical  as  my  own. 
He  must  not  be  a  man  who  profusely  deals, 
as  I  do,  in  unverified  declarations.  He 
must  logically  elucidate  to  me  where  I  am 
wrong  and  why  I  am  right.  It  occurs  to 
me,  with  that  vanity  of  all  essayists  who 
temporarily  have  the  field  quite  to  them- 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  191 

selves,  that  I  am  more  often  right  than 
wrong.  But  if  I  am  conclusively  proved 
more  often  wrong  than  right  by  that  sys 
tem  of  acute  investigation  which  only  the 
science-bred  critic  understands,  then  I  shall 
still  feel  that  I  have  been  of  marked  service 
to  the  writer  thus  empirically  reviewed  ; 
for  I  shall  at  least  have  made  myself  a 
means  of  rousing  careful  and  faithful  con 
sideration  toward  a  series  of  imaginative 
works  thus  far  either  unreasonably  con 
temned  or  irresponsibly  lauded.  The  scien 
tific  tone  and  poise  is  so  prevailing  and 
favorite  a  one  at  the  present  time  in  works 
which  a  few  years  ago  it  rarely  invaded, 
that  I  cannot  help  asking  myself  why  the 
critics,  who  of  all  living  persons  are  most 
easily  accredited  with  the  scientific  tone 
and  poise,  should  not  more  fondly  and  un 
hesitatingly  employ  it.  They  almost  uni 
versally  fail  to  employ  it,  however;  and  on 
this  account  the  wandering  verbiage  of 
their  estimates  may  be  said  to  be  as  value 
less  as  the  announcements  which  I  now 
pluck  up  boldness  enough  to  print.  But 
my  boldness  has  a  weak  fibre  or  two  of 
cowardice  in  it,  I  fear,  after  all.  I  should 
never  have  presumed  to  write  of  Ouida  as  I 


1 92  The  Truth  about  Quid  a. 

have  written,  had  I  not  prized  her  com  po 
sitions,  frankly  and  de  bon  cceur,  far  more 
than  I  blame  them.  For  this  reason  I  have 
given  my  favorable  views  publicity.  Ouida 
is  so  internationally  popular  that  I  am 
confident  of  friendly  endorsements  which 
will  mitigate  for  me  the  necessary  agony 
of  being  anathematized  as  her  defender. 
There  my  cowardice  stops — in  a  certainty 
of  helpers  and  supporters.  For  the  rest, 
if  I  am  called  names  because  I  pay  to  a 
reigning  genius  what  I  hold  as  her  rightful 
tribute,  my  stolid  resignation  will  be  equal 
to  any  martyr's.  I  shall  endure  the  odium, 
certain  of  its  ultimate  destruction.  Times 
change,  and  I  think  the  day  is  not  far  dis 
tant  when  Ouida  will  be  amazed  at  the  sov 
ereign  fame  which  she  herself  has  builded 
through  all  these  years  of  failure  and  tri 
umph,  of  weakness  and  power.  But  per 
haps  she  will  not  be  astonished  at  all,  being 
dead.  Or  perhaps  .  .  .  But  I  leave  that 
point  for  the  religionists  and  the  agnostics 
to  fight  out  between  themselves.  One  gets 
immortality  of  a  certain  kind,  now  and  then, 
whether pallida  mors  bring  to  us  posthumous 
beatitude,  brimstone  or  annihilation.  And 
Ouida,  I  should  insist  (with  deference  to  the 


The  Truth  about  Ouida.  193 

coming  scientific  critic),  has  secured  this 
terrene  kind  of  immortality.  I  don't  know 
whether  or  not  she  would  rank  it  as  a  very 
precious  boon.  To  judge  from  a  good 
many  passages  in  her  abundant  writing,  I 
should  be  inclined  to  decide  negatively. 


SHOULD  CRITICS  BE  GENTLEMEN? 

NOT  long  ago  I  received  from  a  lady  of 
much  culture  and  fine  natural  intelligence 
a  letter  whose  chief  contents  chanced  to 
bear  upon  a  recent  hostile  newspaper  no 
tice  of  a  book  which  she  had  herself  cor 
dially  admired.  One  paragraph  of  this 
letter  especially  struck  me.  It  ran  thus  : 

"  The  attack  upon  Mr.  -  — 's  book  has 
served  more  than«ever  to  convince  me  that 
there  is  something  all  wrong  with  modern 
*  criticism  ' — so  called.  Why  should  not 
the  same  courtesy  be  preserved  in  writing 
of  a  book  which  accepted  usage  forces 
upon  us  in  speaking  of  one  before  its  au 
thor  ?  Reckless  personality  is  condemned 
in  social  intercourse  as  vulgar,  and  even 
odious;  wrhy  should  it  be  held  admissible 
the  instant  that  the  reviewer  takes  up  his 
pen  ?  I  remember  hearing,  as  a  school-girl, 
of  '  polite  literature.  Is  politeness  an  im 
perative  requisite  of  literature  alone,  or  are 
there  similar  kindly  demands  upon  the 

194 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen?       195 

people  who  set  themselves  to  consider  it  ? 
.  .  .  Suppose  we  put  into  actual  life 
the  same  ill-breeding  which  now  exists 
among  the  newspaper  critics.  My  hus 
band,  as  you  know,  is  a  Wall  Street  bank 
er.  Imagine  that  some  gentleman  strolled 
of  a  morning  into  his  office,  and  instead  of 
the  usual  decent  '  good-day,'  began  coolly 
to  assure  him  that  his  business  ability  was 
overrated,  that  his  financial  success  had 
been  cheaply  purchased,  that  he  owed  his 
present  prosperity  to  a  mere  drift  of  luck, 
and  that,  taken  altogether,  he  was  a  person 
of  very  little  real  consequence.  I  am 
nearly  certain  that  my  husband,  under  such 
circumstances,  would  become  exceedingly 
angry.  And  if  he  added  to  his  anger  a  flat 
request  that  this  same  outspoken  individ 
ual  should  never  again  cross  his  threshold, 
I  am  positive  in  my  belief  that  hundreds 
of  thoughtful  and  fair-minded  outsiders 
would  promptly  support  the  course  he  had 
taken.  .  .  .  The  great  difficulty  with  all 
you  literary  people  is  that  you  almost 
wholly  waive  good  manners  in  your  dis 
cussions  of  one  another.  You  pour  upon 
the  book  of  a  fellow-writer  abuse  which 
you  would  despise  yourselves  for  venting 
if  it  were  a  question  of  his  ill-cut  coat,  his 


1 96      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

inseparable  squint  or  his  hereditary  freck 
les.  You  draw  quite  too  sharp  a  line  be 
tween  what  you  may  hold  to  be  good  criti 
cism  and  what  your  own  sense  of  common 
propriety  has  long  ago  convinced  you  to 
be  good  breeding." 

This  communication,  after  I  had  read 
and  pondered  it,  struck  me  as  a  somewhat 
lucid  view  of  the  whole  matter.  If  not  a 
comprehensive  judgment,  it  is  certainly 
one  which  contains  the  true  reformatory 
element.  There  is  perhaps  no  one  of  its 
factors  with  which  civilization  could  less 
easily  dispense  than  with  that  of  courtesy. 
Imagine  the  horrors  of  a  drawing-room  or 
a  dinner-table  where  everybody  said  to 
everybody  else  precisely  what  he  .consid 
ered  to  be  deserved  or  appropriate,  regard 
less  of  the  pain  it  would  cost.  In  the  re 
public  of  letters,  it  might  be  answered,  we 
are  supposed  to  replace  formality  by  sin 
cerity.  That  is  not  unlike  the  method, 
take  it  all  in  all,  adopted  by  Robespierre 
in  his  republic.  There  was  a  great  deal  of 
sincerity  about  that.  Critics  and  criticism 
there  had  it  all  their  own  way.  It  was  an 
incisive  way,  and  one  essentially  brutal. 
For  the  latter  reason  its  admirers  were 
numerous. 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      197 

Censure  would  find  it  hard  to  adequate 
ly  discountenance  the  arrogance  and  rude 
ness  of  the  newspaper  critic  as  they  exist 
at  the  present  time.  His  effort  to  show 
mental  superiority  and  notable  acumen 
quite  too  often  makes  him  forget  that  he 
is  also  expected  to  appear  a  gentleman, 
He  may  not  be  one  (he  is,  alas  !  too  fre 
quently  the  dreary  reverse),  but  he  is  never 
theless  required  to  seem  one  by  that  very 
standard  of  high  cultivation  which  he  has 
so  emphatically  assumed.  Even  he  would 
admit  that  there  is  something  in  good 
manners,  after  all.  Only,  it  is  difficult  to 
remember  manners  while  you  are  being 
radiantly  judicial.  The  sun  has  beams 
that  kill.  Is  it  so  painful  a  calamity  that 
you  should  give  some  one  poor  Jones  his 
quietus  while  you  illuminate  your  entire 
period  and  pour  consequent  benefit  on 
many  Joneses  ? 

I  know  the  modern  critic  to  be  a  very 
sensitive  person, — quite  as  much  so  as  the 
most  thin-skinned  poet  who  ever  bled  un 
der  his  bodkin.  I  have  never  been  able 
to  explain  this  peculiarity  except  through 
the  tremulous  effects  of  an  evil  conscience. 
It  is  constantly  manifest,  however,  and  it 
has  more  than  once  led  me  to  realize  the 


198      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

keenness  of  those  shocks  which  its  posses 
sor  must  find  himself  called  on  to  sustain 
when  he  encounters  printed  impressions  of 
fellow-critics  diametrically  different  from 
his  own.  That  he  is  always  finding  him 
self  disagreed  with  there  can  be  no  admis 
sible  doubt.  I  don't  know  what  heroic 
self-reliance  buoys  up  his  sense  of  infalli 
bility  under  these  trying  conditions.  For 
my  own  part,  I  have  more  than  once  ex 
amined  with  amusement  the  variations  be 
tween  the  verdicts  passed  by  "  authori 
ties  "  upon  my  own  humble  work.  I  have 
read  the  eulogies  of  Rhadamanthus  in  the 
Tomahawk  till  my  cheeks  tingled  with 
pleasurable  blushes.  "  How  entirely  charm 
ing  of  Rhadamanthus  !"  I  have  said  to 
myself.  "He  understands  me;  he  and  I 
are  kindred  souls,  and  the  next  time  I 
meet  him  on  Broadway  I  hope  it  will  be 
lunch-time,  so  that  I  can  ask  him  to  join 
me  somewhere  for  a  chop  and  a  swallow 
of  claret."  Then  I  have  taken  up  the 
Hatchet,  and  discovered  that  Minos  thinks 
I  have  just  added  new  indignity  to  the 
persecutions  of  an  over-patient  public.  I 
am  styleless  and  flaccid;  I  am  aspiring, 
but  effete;  I  have  blundered  into  a  pseudc- 
reputation,  and  am  a  complex  junction  of 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?       199 

dulness,  falsity  and  feebleness.  This  both 
alarms  and  depresses  me.  I  ask  myself, 
with  the  vague  and  meek  ratiocination  of 
one  simultaneously  petted  and  persecuted, 
how  I  can  be,  on  account  of  the  same  piece 
of  literary  achievement,  at  once  wise  and 
foolish,  profound  and  shallow,  talented 
and  vacuous.  But  the  Lancet  soon  reas 
sures  me.  I  am,  according  to  ^Eacos, 
neither  large  nor  small;  it  is  quite  ex 
plained  now:  I  am  simply  a  nice  blending 
of  mediocrity  and  industry.  Here  are 
three  mighty  judges,  all  stoutly  opposed 
to  one  another.  They  cannot  all  be  right; 
and  if  one  is  right  the  other  two  are  fatally 
wrong.  But  how  shattering  to  my  own 
impulses  of  reverence  !  It  is  like  a  vulgar 
family  quarrel  in  the  household  of  Jupi 
ter. 

These  discordances  of  opinion  are  not 
occasional;  they  occur  every  day.  They 
are  to  my  mind  the  great  proof  of  how  ab 
surdly  needless  are  all  published  comments 
on  books  in  current  newspapers.  Many 
an  author  might  find  two  or  three  of  his 
works  adorning  the  "  parlor  table"  of  some 
"  flat "  in  Harlem  owned  by  the  reviewer 
who  has  hotly  abused  them  all  during  past 
months.  This  gentleman  has  no  doubt 


2OO      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

forgotten  his  own  abuse.  Perhaps  he  has 
really  read  the  books  afterward,  unpro- 
fessionally,  as  it  were,  in  the  quiet  of  his 
own  home  and  beneath  the  light  of  his 
evening  lamp,  enjoying  their  contents. 
Most  fair  and  thoughtful  criticism  is  of 
necessity  kindly,  and  you  are  very  apt  to 
cut  a  sorry  figure  in  recommending  a  book 
which  you  have  not  thoroughly  read.  In 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  your  praise  rings  false 
and  silly,  for  your  ignorance  of  what  you 
are  praising  betrays  itself,  like  the  piece 
of  futile  hypocrisy  it  is.  You  resemble  a 
maid  who  rouges  her  mistress  in  a  dim 
light;  there  is  danger  of  the  lady's  nose 
getting  a  little  rosy  accidental  spot  on  its 
tip.  But  the  criticism  that  puts  down  its 
head  like  a  bull  and  "  makes  "  for  a  book 
never  requires  the  least  preparation,  pre 
meditation.  Not  very  long  ago  I  met  a 
critic  who  engaged  me  in  conversation  on 
the  subject  of  more  than  one  recent  book 
which  I  myself  happened  carefully  to  have 
read,  and  which  he  had  presumably  read, 
as  he  had  reviewed  each  of  them.  To  my 
surprise,  he  spoke  of  one  these  books  in 
tones  of  extreme  praise.  He  had  forgot 
ten,  no  doubt,  that  he  had  ever  denounced 
it.  I  could  not  help  feeling  that  I  should 


SJwuld  Critics  be  Gentlemen  f      20 1 

altogether  have  preferred  this  gentleman's 
blame. 

Nothing  is  so  easy  as  to  be  what  we 
nowadays  call  a  critic.  Unless  you  are 
mentally  unsound,  you  must  have  certain 
opinions  regarding  the  books  which  may 
come  under  your  eye.  Entertaining  such 
opinions,  you  are  required  to  express  them 
with  moderate  ease  and  giibness,  though 
the  integrity  demanded  of  your  syntax 
will,  I  suppose,  vary  according  to  the 
"  tone  "  of  your  journal  or  the  liberality  of 
your  wage.  For  my  own  part,  when  re 
flecting  that  I  too  possess,  in  common  with 
the  rest  of  my  race,  opinions  about  the  lit 
erary  performances  of  my  contemporaries, 
I  cannot  but  feel  that  I  would  sell  almost 
anything  else  in  the  world  rather  than  be 
come  a  daily — or  weekly — vender  of  these 
opinions.  Oranges,  bananas,  gentlemen's 
braces,  lead-pencils — you  may  go  through 
a  very  long  list  of  salable  things  (if  you 
will  only  leave  me  my  good  name),  and  I 
feel  certain  that  you  will  hit  upon  nothing 
which  I  should  not  prefer  to  sell  rather 
than  these  inevitably  haphazard  and  often 
grossly  unjust  personal  opinions.  I  have 
not  the  slightest  doubt  that  some  future 
day  will  see  newspaper  criticism  as  com- 


2O2      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

pletely  abolished  as  the  whipping-post,  the 
stocks,  imprisonment  for  debt  and  other 
exploded  nuisances. 

The  first  delicious  sense  of  power  in  a 
young  writer  is  always  accompanied  by  a 
conviction  that  he  can  teach  others  how  to 
write  and  how  not  to  write.  He  may  him 
self  have  done  nothing  more  noteworthy 
than  a  few  lyrics  in  the  Waverley  Magazine, 
that  publication  which  takes  pride,  I  am 
informed,  in  asserting  that  it  thrives  upon 
the  cacoethes  of  the  would-be  Tennysons 
and  Thackerays,  and  which  boasts  of  never 
having  paid  a  dollar  for  any  of  the  extra 
ordinary  verses  and  stories  thronging  its 
innumerable  pages.  He  may  only  have 
written  a  vapid  little  tale  for  some  local 
journal, — let  us  say  in  Brundusium,  Ohio, 
— or  a  peppery  editorial  or  two  in  the  pages 
of  a  sheet  eagerly  subscribed  for  by  the 
citizens  of  Gomorrah,  Wyoming  Territory. 
But  he  will  feel  himself  a  critic,  just  the 
same.  Give  him  his  head,  and  he  will 
scamper  rough-shod  over  Dante  and  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  Milton  and  Henry  James, 
with  the  same  unsparing  ardor  of  treatment. 
He  will  adore,  he  will  hate  ;  he  will  dissect, 
he  will  generalize  ;  he  will  vituperate,  he 
will  condone  ;  he  will  scorn,  he  will  wor- 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      203 

ship.  In  other  words,  he  possesses  pre 
judices //-<?  and  con,  for  which  he  desires  un 
restricted  vent.  If  the  editor  of  the  New 
York  Tribune  were  to  advertise  for  a  critic 
to-morrow,  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  appli 
cants  for  such  office  would  swiftly  swell 
into  thousands  throughout  a  single  day. 
The  one  thing  that  all  literary  tyros  believe 
themselves  capable  of  doing,  and  of  doing 
superlatively  well,  is  criticism  upon  writers 
of  recognized  name.  They  think  it,  in  the 
words  of  the  old  phrase,  to  be  <-as  easy  as 
lying  ;"  and  I  regret  to  add  that  in  other 
respects  they  often  make  it  not  dissimilar 
from  that  wide-spread  weakness.  News 
paper  offices  naturally  swarm  with  persons 
of  just  this  analytic  and  ambitious  turn. 
The  editors  will  tell  you  that  many  more 
neophytes  aspire  to  do  "review  work"  than 
to  embark  upon  the  mundane  reportorial 
drudgeries.  It  is  chiefly  from  these  very 
self-sufficient  and  audacious  beings  that  the 
author  receives  his  worst  assaults.  The 
world  appears  to  perceive  that  this  is  true, 
and  yet  with  regard  to  the  author  himself 
it  rather  curiously  misunderstands  and  mis- 
values  the  whole  situation.  "  Do  not  notice 
your  critics  !"  it  cries  to  the  indignant  vic 
tim,  about  whose  ears  peas  from  ambus- 


2O4      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

caded  shooters  may  be  whizzing,  and  with 
some  annoyance  if  with  no  actual  peril. 
"They  are  quite  beneath  you.  It  is  in  the 
worst  possible  taste  for  you  to  show  the 
least  consciousness  on  your  part  that  they 
exist  at  all."  But  meanwhile  the  injured 
author,  recipient  as  he  so  often  is  of  abso 
lute  insult,  finds  himself  called  upon  to  ob 
serve  that  the  world  gives  his  critics  a  fair 
share  of  respectful  attention.  My  own  ex 
periences  of  this  self-contradictory  move 
ment  have  been  rather  amusing.  I  have 
on  certain  occasions  inly  smiled  as  I  heard 
comments  delivered  to  me  upon  my  own 
works  which  echoed  with  a  servility  that 
was  perhaps  unconscious  more  th;m  a  single 
statement  extant  in  yesterday's  newspaper. 
Whether,  indeed,  the  general  reading  pub 
lic  does  concern  itself  with  these  observa 
tions  is,  after  all,  questionable  ;  but  it  is 
true  that  there  are  two  classes  who  do 
peruse  them  and  often  study  them  carefully 
as  well — an  author's  friends  and  his  ene 
mies.  This  is  a  constituency  which  never 
fails  the  most  spiteful  reviewer,  and  it  is 
one  upon  which  he  counts  in  the  main 
tenance  of  his  wholly  useless  position. 

I  insist  that  it  is  in   every  case  a  useless 
position,  evsn  when   it  is  charitably  rather 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  f      205 

than  maliciously  maintained.  Newspaper 
critics  are  as  little  wanted  as  newspaper 
advertisements  are  greatly  wanted — and 
paid  for  on  that  account.  Publishers  send 
books  to  the  daily  or  weekly  press  with  but 
one  motive — that  they  shall  be  copiously 
praised.  Some  three  or  four  volumes  of  a 
work  are  for  this  reason  given  away  when 
ever  publication  occurs.  The  distribution 
is  made  for  commercial  reasons  alone,  and 
the  publishers,  through  slender  sales,  are 
often  losers  because  of  it.  Upon  them  the 
loss  alone  falls  ;  they  are  so  many  copies 
"out."  They  read  adverse  notices — too  fre 
quently  tissues  of  reckless  falsehood  when 
not  the  product  of  minds  either  jaded  from 
underpaid  overwork  or  by  nature  meagrely 
equipped  for  the  tasks  entered  upon — with 
a  bitterness  quite  as  acute  as  the  author's. 
Hostility  that  touches  a  man's  pocket  irri 
tates  him  quite  as  much  as  that  which 
touches  his  self-esteem.  Publishers  are  to 
day  groaning  at  the  churlish  paragraphic 
treatment  which  their  gratuitous  copies 
receive  from  newspapers  to  which'they  are 
sent.  And  yet  these  gentlemen  still  con 
tinue  to  send.  They  recognize  the  absurdity, 
the  foolhardiness,  of  the  whole  system,  but, 
like  many  another  abuse,  it  obtains  because 


206      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

it  has  become  time-honored,  and  they  still 
go  on  practically  sanctioning  it.  A  few 
months  ago  I  received  from  a  publisher  of 
excellent  standing  and  universally  accepted 
shrewdness  a  declaration  that  surprised  me 
because  of  its  unexpected  frankness.  It 
was  distinctly  to  the  effect  that  he  himself 
would  be  glad  enough  to  do  away  with  the 
whole  custom  of  offering  books  for  journal 
istic  attention  and  discussion,  provided 
three  or  four  houses  of  similar  repute  to 
his  own  would  agree  upon  a  similar  course. 
But  there  lay  the  fatal  impediment.  His 
confreres  were  always  hoping  that  a  book 
issued  by  them  would  have  the  luck  to 
secure  wide  approval  from  the  critics,  be 
written  about  in  one  homogeneous  strain 
of  praise  from  Vermont  to  Utah,  and  hence 
secure  a  '*  boom"  that  would  swell  financial 
receipts  afterward.  But  such  a  golden 
trouvaille  of  good  fortune  is  very  rarely  hit 
upon.  It  is  nearly  always  the  same  order 
of  things  with  the  despots  of  the  many 
petty  provinces.  They  may  be  clad  with  a 
little  brief  authority,  but  they  propose  to 
get  all  the  wear  procurable  out  of  this 
flimsy  and  transient  vestment.  They  arc 
determined  to  strut  about  in  it,  to  drape  its 
folds,  as  might  be  said,  with  a  becoming 


Slionid  Critics  be  Gentlemen  /      207 

personal  dignity.  Tompkins  would  not 
\vrite  of  the  last  novel  or  poem  or  biogra 
phy  as  Smith  has  done  for  even  an  extra 
dollar  a  week  added  to  his  pathetic  salary  ; 
and  there  are  nine  chances  out  of  ten  that 
B/own  will  feel  himself  equally  thrilled  by 
his  own  individualism  and  mental  import 
ance  when  examining  the  decisions  of 
Tompkins  or  Smith.  No  ;  the  commercial 
value  of  the  whole  arbitrary  and  whimsical 
process  is  almost  always  nil  to  the  aggrieved 
publisher.  He  finds  that  as  a  rule  his 
"selling"  books  are  those  which  the  critics 
treat  even  more  shabbily  than  usual,  or 
concerning  which  they  disagree  with  an 
unwonted  ardor.  He  feels  in  his  heart  that 
the  newspaper  is  to  be  trusted  simply  as  a 
medium  of  information  between  himself 
and  his  public,  declaring  that  certain  works 
have  been  issued  by  him,  and  can  be  bought 
just  as  he  has  bought  the  means  of  so 
asserting.  He  has  a  full  perception  of  the 
flippancy,  the  acrimony  and  the  incom 
petence  by  which  his  donations  are  inces 
santly  rewarded.  And  he  still  makes  them, 
notwithstanding.  Some  day  there  will  be 
a  quiet  and  effectual  revolt  against  this 
flagrant  injustice.  Some  day  the  wrong 
will  right  itself,  and  instead  of  receiving 


208      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

bundles  of  new  books  by  the  morning  mail 
or  express,  that  sapient  institution,  our 
modern  newspaper,  will  find  the  avowal  of 
its  literary  loves  and  hates  alike  unsolicited. 
Such  a  prophecy  may  sound  millennial ;  so 
does  that  of  an  international  copyright 
law,  whose  absence  makes  us  properly  the 
jeer  of  almost  every  other  civilized  nation, 
and  turns  all  our  authors  into  men  without 
countries.  But  one  day  we  shall  have  in 
ternational  copyright,  nevertheless,  just  as 
one  day  we  shall  carelessly  and  almost  un 
consciously  dispense  with  all  such  minor 
tyrannies  as  newspaper  critics. 

As  an  example  of  extreme  sincerity  and 
honesty  among  members  of  this  guild,  I 
should  like  to  chronicle  a  particular  in 
cident  which  befell  myself.  One  evening, 
about  eight  years  ago,  just  before  the  ap 
pearance  of  my  first  book  of  poems,  "Fan 
tasy  and  Passion,  '  I  went  to  a  reception 
given  at  the  Lotos  Club,  in  New  York. 
Among  the  assembled  guests  was  a  certain 
person  whom  some  optimists  have  seriously 
stated  to  be  a  poet.  He  had  a  position, 
then,  upon  some  evening  paper  as  its  liter 
ary  critic  ;  I  am  not  quite  sure  whether  or 
no  it  was  the  journal  which  he  at  present 
represents,  though  I  think  not.  He  had 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      209 

been  writing  with  belligerence  and  not  a 
little  clear  malignity  about  certain  poems 
of  mine  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  else- 
\vhere,  and  when  I  received  from  a  mutual 
acquaintance  his  request  to  cross  the  rooms 
and  speak  with  him,  I  felt  considerable 
surprise.  After  very  little  hesitation,  how 
ever,  I  refused  point-blank  ;  and  yet  I  sent 
no  uncivil  message,  since  the  whole  affair 
was  one  of  quite  too  much  indifference  to 
me  for  that.  As  I  subsequently  learned, 
however,  he  became  excessively  angry  on 
hearing  of  my  unwillingness,  and  indeed 
lost  all  control  of  his  temper.  "  I  will  kill 
that  man  !"  he  exclaimed  to  my  peaceful 
and  astonished  emissary,  finishing  his  sen 
tence  with  a  robust  oath,  and  beginning 

his  next  sentence  with  another.     "  By , 

I've  killed  bigger  men  than  he  is,  and  I'll 
kill  him!"  This  murderous  threat  bore  no 
allusion  to  my  own  life,  but  rather  to  that 
of  my  first  book  of  poems,  "  Fantasy  and 
Passion."  On  the  appearance  of  that  book, 
the  gentleman  certainly  behaved  like  a 
critic  with  a  private  graveyard  for  the 
corpses  of  those  reputations  which  he  had 
already  wrathfully  slain.  Whether  he  suc 
ceeded  in  burying  my  own  there  or  not  I 
leave  his  most  amiable  conscience  to  decide. 


2 1  o      SJiould  Critics  be  Gentlemen  / 

I  seem  to  have  somehow  risen  from  my 
ashes,  if  this  is  true  ;  but  it  may  be  only 
one  of  those  delusions  born  of  an  author's 
inextinguishable  egotism,  even  after  he  him 
self  has  been  given  a  permanent  quietus. 

But  I  deny  that  the  least  egotism  has 
impelled  me  to  record  this  dramatic  little 
episode.  I  have  merely  wished  to  show 
what  exquisite  fidelity  to  principles,  what 
honorable  discharge  of  responsibility,  may 
exist  among  these  critics  of  newspapers, 
from  whom  we  are  entitled  surely  to  ex 
pect  an  unbiassed  and  disinterested  ex 
pression  of  their  likes  and  dislikes,  if  noth 
ing  more  final  and  valuable.  There  is  no 
part  of  my  narration  at  all  doubtful  as  to 
fact.  The  gentleman  who  was  a  witness  of 
this  critic's  fine  rageful  outburst  and  an 
auditor  of  his  anathema,  made  no  mistake 
in  what  ht;  saw  and  heard.  Now,  let  us 
consider,  from  an  article  signed  with  his 
own  name  in  a  recent  issue  of  his  journal, 
just  what  philosophic  and  flawless  theories 
of  criticism  this  reviewer,  who  vowed  he 
would  kill  me  and  who  has  killed  bigger  men 
than  I  am,  fosters  enough  diverting  effront 
ery  to  print.  "They,"  writes  our  Thalaba, 
alluding  to  certain  other  reviewers  whom 
his  own  rancorous  postulates  have  offended, 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      211 

"might  keep  their  temper,  as  I  do  mine, 
and  they  need  not  attribute  personal  motives  to 
me,  for  I  have  none.  No  man  who  is  worthy 
of  the  name  of  a  critic  ever  writes  from  a  per 
sonal  motive.  His  business  is  not  to  deal 
with  the  author,  the  artist,  the  actor,  but 
with  his  work."  Yes,  my  lusty  arch-foe, 
you  are  for  once  wholly  right.  And  you 
might  have  added,  "  His  business  is  also 
not  to  growl  profane  and  ridiculous  menaces 
against  an  author  whose  book  he  has  not 
yet  even  seen,  and  then  to  indulge  in  slan 
derous  comments  regarding  that  author, 
whenever  occasion  serves,  during  a  period 
of  eight  succeeding  years."  I  can  scarcely 
explain  why  memory  wanders  just  here  to 
that  tragic  incident  in  "  Pendennis"  where 
the  "  Spring  Annual "  containing  poor  Pen's 
verses  (and  very  lovely  verses  they  were, 
as  we  all  recall  in  thinking  of  "  The  Church 
Porch")  fell  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Bludyer. 
"Mr.  Bludyer,"  runs  the  passage,  "who 
was  a  man  of  very  considerable  talent,  .  .  . 
had  a  certain  notoriety  in  his  profession, 
and  reputation  for  savage  humor.  He 
smashed  and  trampled  down  the  poor 
spring-flowers  with  no  more  mercy  than  a 
bull  would  have  on  a  parterre  ;  and,  hav 
ing  cut  up  the  volume  to  hiis  heart's  con- 


2 1 2      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

tent,  went  and  sold  it  at  a  book-stall,  and 
purchased  a  pint  of  brandy  with  the  pro 
ceeds  of  the  volume." 

I  am  well  aware  that  it  is  nowadays  the 
fashion  for  authors  not  to  "answer"  their 
critics.  If  Byron  should  write  his  "  Eng 
lish  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers"  at  the 
present  time,  its  pungent  satire  would  be 
denounced  as  in  execrable  taste,  and  all 
his  friends  would  pull  long  faces  when 
they  met  him,  in  sorrow  at  his  exceeding 
temerity.  The  newspapers  are  now  sup 
posed  to  be  omnipotent  in  crushing  a  man, 
and  to  "  fight"  them,  as  the  phrase  goes,  is 
looked  upon  as  courting  sure  destruction. 
But  while  the  law  mercifully  draws  a  line 
at  positive  libel,  I  cannot  see  just  why  the 
publicity  which  they  are  capable  of  causing 
should  deter  an  honest  man  or  an  honest 
woman  from  resenting  outrage.  If  you 
are  reviled  because  you  have  dared  to  write 
a  book,  I  fail  to  understand  why  you 
should  shrink  from  a  little  more  abuse  for 
denying  false  charges  against  it.  You  say 
to  me,  my  friend,  that  I  should  hold  all 
critics  in  contempt.  So  I  will,  when  the 
publishers  refrain  from  holding  them  in 
respect.  So  I  will,  when  I  cease  to  find 
their  praise  used  in  advertisements  of  my 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      213 

works,  like  the  certificate  of  a  schoolboy's 
good  conduct.  So  I  will,  when  I  know 
them  receiving  disregard,  and  not  propitia 
tion.  So  I  will,  when  society  says  to  me, 
"It  is  a  very  serious  and  great  art,  this  art 
of  criticism,  and  it  is  neither  the  ruffianly 
swinging  of  a  bludgeon  nor  the  insecure 
handling  of  a  scalpel." 

It  seems  to  me  that  if  a  true  critic  should 
arise  in  the  world  he  would  be  as  worthy 
of  homage  and  reverence  as  the  noblest 
philosopher  or  poet  who  ever  lived.  He 
would  be  as  dispassionate  as  the  law  of 
gravitation  and  as  charitable  as  the  all- 
dispensing  sun.  But,  alas  !  when  and 
where  have  we  had  a  true  critic  ?  Emer 
son  ?  He  is  as  divine  in  his  misjudgments 
as  he  is  trustworthy  in  his  splendid  intui 
tions.  Carlyle  ?  He  was  a. poseur,  a  shrieker, 
who  scolded  ostentatiously  and  made  peo 
ple  remark  his  tempest  because  it  was  en 
closed  in  so  fantastic  a  teapot.  Besides, 
these  men  were  not  literary  critics  in  any 
true  sense.  But  Taine,  the  remarkable  and 
brilliant  Taine,  is  a  literary  critic  ;  and  yet 
who  can  forgive  him  for  being  so  much  of  a 
Frenchman  as  to  put  De  Musset  above  Ten 
nyson  ?  There  is  no  criticism  at  all  except 
that  which  founds  itself  upon  inflexible, 


214      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen? 

logical  science.  If  beauty,  eloquence,  poet 
ry,  rhythm,  harmony,  style,  taste,  insight 
into  human  character,  sympathy  with  the 
phases  and  subtleties  of  nature,  are  not 
susceptible  of  scientific  definition  and  clas 
sification,  they  are  not  truth — for  all  truth 
is  so  susceptible,  sooner  or  later.  It  will 
not  do  for  A  to  tell  me  that  Poe's  u  An 
nabel  Lee"  has  an  "indefinable  melody," 
an  "unfathomable  tenderness."  B,  who 
does  not  see  with  the  eyes  of  A  at  all,  may 
think  "Annabel  Lee"  a  mere  sensuous  and 
senseless  jingle.  Both  sides  may  rave,  for 
and  against,  over  the  merits  or  the  short 
comings  of  these  stanzas.  But  enthusi 
asm  settles  no  more  than  vituperation  does. 
De  gustibus  non  disputandum  is  a  sword  of 
epigram  that  simply  tries  to  cut  the  throat 
of  criticism.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  who 
tells  me  why  a  poem  is  beautiful  should 
explain  to  me  what  beauty  is.  He  can  no 
more  do  that  than  he  can  tell  me  what 
matter  is  when  he  states  that  one  mass  of 
it,  the  earth,  moves  round  another  mass  of 
it,  the  sun.  But  he  can  find  some  living 
law — as  I  almost  believe  the  German 
thinker,  Schopenhauer,  has  done — which 
governs  beauty  in  all  its  forms  of  develop 
ment  and  manifestation.  All  modern  crit- 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      21$ 

icism  is  summed  up  in  this:  "I,  John 
Smith,  declare  that  John  Brown  has  or  has 
not  genius,  has  or  has  not  ability,  is  or  is 
not  a  poet,  a  philosopher,  a  historian,  a 
novelist."  We  are  overrun  with  essays  and 
disquisitions  on  writers  ;  we  are  surfeited 
with  ipse  dixi ;  we  have  had  enougli  and 
more  than  enough  of  a  priori  dogmatism. 
I  know  that  there  are  a  great  many  people 
who  are  prepared  to  shudder  at  the  thought 
of  science  being  applied  to  any  of  their 
aesthetic  pleasures.  Whenever  it  is  a  ques 
tion  of  their  bodily  health,  of  the  bread  they 
eat,  of  the  air  they  breathe,  of  the  clothes 
they  wear,  of  the  colds  they  catch,  of  the 
deaths  they  are  likely  to  die,  they  accept  the 
only  aid  and  guidance  which  their  reason 
assures  them  to  be  the  potent  one.  But 
with  literature  they  must  indulge  a  sen 
timental  acceptance  of  the  inscrutable.  It 
appears  to  me  that  newspaper  critics  and 
all  the  numberless  foibles  which  their  ran 
dom  dicta  beget  are  a  result  of  just  this 
drowsy  bigotry.  "  How,"  cries  the  quiver 
ing  voice  of  sentimentality,  "can  you  de 
monstrate  to  me  the  fragrance  of  the  rose 
or  the  whiteness  of  the  lily  ?"  My  answer 
must  be,  "I  can  do  neither  ultimately,  but 
I  can  do  both  relatively.  If  I  were  a  news- 


216      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen? 

paper  critic,  I  might  assert  that  the  rose  was 
odorless  and  the  lily  blood-red.  These 
would  be  statements  quite  as  unsupported 
by  proof  as  many  which  stare  at  us  from  the 
pages  of  our  morning  journals,  in  their  *  lit 
erary'  columns.  But  I  can  prove  inductively 
and  comparatively,  if  you  will,  that  to  you 
the  odor  diffused  by  your  rose  has  a  right  to 
be  called  agreeable,  and  similarly  that  the 
purity  of  your  lily  has  a  right  to  be  called 
chaste."  I  am  prone  to  believe  that  very 
marvellous  things  may  be  done  in  litera 
ture  when  this  abhorred  science  has  begun 
to  investigate  it.  There  must  be  very  pow 
erful  radical  reasons  why  we  are  all  so 
willing  to  think  "  Hamlet"  a  work  of  genius. 
Thus  far  nearly  all  the  writers  who  have 
told  us  why  have  considered  rather  too 
much  who  is  telling  it  and  how  it  is  being 
told.  The  paths  of  the  essayist  and  the 
analyst  are  widely  divergent.  One  is  full 
of  the  pretty  buds  of  rhetoric — the  flosculi 
sententiarum — which  it  is  hard  not  occasion 
ally  to  stop  and  pluck.  The  other  is  bloom- 
less,  and  even  granitic,  with  no  temptations 
for  the  rhapsodist  over  floriculture,  and  a 
very  stern  method  in  the  recurrence  of  its 
mile-stones. 

There  is  a  publishing-house  in  New  York 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      217 

— that  of  Messrs.  Funk  &  Wagnalls,  if  I  may 
be  permitted  to  mention  its  name  without 
bringing  on  myself  the  awful  accusation  of 
wishing  to  "puff"  it — which  has  struck  me 
as  having  hit,  in  the  turmoil  and  fatuity  of 
newspaper  criticism,  upon  a  mode  of  win 
ning  public  attention  at  once  legitimate 
and  salutary.  This  house  has  conceived 
the  plan  of  sending  to  authors  of  estab 
lished  fame  copies  of  the  new  books  which 
it  has  issued,  and  asking  from  them  a  few 
lines,  to  be  printed  as  advertisement  if 
thought  advisable.  Surely  this  attitude,  if 
persistently  perserved,  is  one  which  in  time 
could  be  made  stoutly  to  prevail  over  all 
the  haphazard  treatises  of  the  ordinary  re 
viewers.  If  the  author  under  considera 
tion,  whoever  he  may  be,  could  look  into 
the  columns  of  a  newspaper  and  find  that 
Tennyson,  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  Mr.  Lecky, 
Mr.  Tyndall  or  Mr.  Froude  had  not  only 
praised  his  work,  but  allowed  such  praise 
to  be  openly  published  as  a  help  to  him 
against  the  puerilities  and  jealousies  of  the 
mere  empirical  bunglers,  how  thankful  he 
might  have  good  reason  to  feel  !  And 
even  if  lesser  writers  could  be  brought  to 
lend  each  other  their  warm,  sweet  aid, 
whenever  they  could  truthfully  and  sin- 


2 1 8      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

cerely  do  so,  what  a  gentle  but  telling  fight 
would  be  waged  against  those  wrangling 
"  professionals"  who  now  swarm  about  a 
book  like  minnows  round  a  freshly-dropped 
bait  !  True  enough,  there  would  be  no 
real  criticism  in  all  this.  It  would  be  a 
compromise,  not  a  settlement ;  an  improve 
ment,  not  a  remedy.  Authors  are  not  crit 
ics,  because  all  individual  talent  (or  genius, 
which  is  precisely  the  same  as  talent  in 
kind,  though  not  in  degree)  presupposes 
limitation.  But  authors  are  in  most  cases 
vastly  better  critics  than  the  so-termed 
critics  themselves.  I  know  with  what  de 
rision  the  latter  might  feel  inclined  to  hail 
my  statement.  It  would  be  as  extraor 
dinary,  if  they  did  not  so  hail  it,  as  the 
popularization  of  agnosticism  among  the 
clergy.  And  yet  if  you,  reader,  had  written 
a  poem,  whom  would  you  choose  to  have 
for  its  eulogist  ?  The  Dryasdust  who  glares 
at  it  with  a  preconceived  hatred  because 
the  Muses  are  nine  and  so  are  the  children 
whom  he  has  to  support  by  hack-work  on 
the  Saturday  Scorpion  ?  Or  would  your  pref 
erence  be  just  one  brief  sentence  from  the 
wise  and  tender  lips  of  such  a  man  as  the 
late  Mr.  Longfellow  ?  Whose  approval 
would  please  you  more  ?  Would  not  the 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      219 

first,  indeed,  turn  to  utter  tameness  beside 
the  last  ?  Surely  yes,  I  think,  although 
few  poets  have  ever  been  more  infamously 
assailed  in  their  time  than  Longfellow  was. 
I  remember  that  once  while  I -was  a  guest 
in  his  lovely  home  our  conversation  drifted 
upon  critics.  His  mild,  lucid  eye  almost 
flashed  as  he  said  to  me,  "  Whenever  I  have 
been  attacked  by  one  of  those  fellows  I 
always  feel  as  if  I  had  been  blackguarded 
in  the  street  !"  This  may  prove  interest 
ing  to  a  few  of  "  those  fellows"  who  still 
live  ;  but,  whether  it  does  or  not,  I  repeat 
Longfellow's  exact  words.  A  little  later, 
during  that  same  visit,  he  said  to  me, 
"  Never  notice  your  critics,  under  any  cir 
cumstances."  And  I  have  always  remem 
bered  the  little  gesture  of  disdain  that  went 
with  these  words  ;  for  Longfellow  was  by 
no  means  the  milk-and-water  personage 
whom  some  of  his  biographers  have  painted 
him,  but  a  man  of  the  world,  trained  in  the 
choicest  niceties  and  elegances,  and  with  a 
savoir-faire  and  dignity  of  demeanor  that 
I  have  seldom  seen  equalled.  Even  if  he 
had  not  been  the  true  and  noble  poet  he 
was,  he  could  never  have  become  a  critic ; 
his  manners  were  far  too  good  for  that. 
In  allusion  to  Poe's  pitiable  dirt-throwing, 


22O      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  f 

he  spoke  with  the  gentlest  reserve  ;  and  yet 
he  told  me,  shaking  his  head  for  a  moment 
with  evident  melancholy,  that  Poe  was  in 
his  debt  for  a  considerable  sum  of  money 
at  the  period  this  scurrilous  onslaught  had 
been  made.  Well,  time  has  been  the 
avenger,  and  Poe's  meanness  has  borne  no 
fruit.  The  fame  of  Longfellow  will  stay 
luminous  for  generations  to  be,  while  that 
of  Poe,  in  the  poetical  sense,  is  kept  fever 
ishly  alive  by  fanatical  admirers  whom  the 
meretricious  tavvdriness  of  his  verse  (apart 
from  the  really  astonishing  quality  of  his 
prose)  fails  to  convince  that  he  was  by  no 
means  a  poet.  I  have  always  been  able  to 
understand  just  why  Poe  was  so  ferocious, 
narrow  and  ungentlemanly  a  "  critic"  of 
other  men's  writing  since  I  heard  the  words 
of  a  man  who  had  once  seen  and  talked 
with  him.  The  man  was  a  printer,  the 
head  of  a  reputable  printing  establishment, 
and  what  he  communicated  to  me  regard 
ing-  his  single  experience  of  Poe  I  then  had 
every  reason  to  believe,  and  still  believe 
implicitly.  "I  once  saw  Edgar  Poe."  de 
clared  my  informant,  "and  shall  never 
forget  the  meeting.  He  called  upon  me 
and  made  to  me  a  proposition  regarding  a 
newspaper  which  he  wished  to  establish. 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen?      221 

His  proposition  was  thoroughly  immoral, 
involving  a  distinct  scheme  of  fraud,  and 
his  condition  when  he  made  it  was  one  of 
the  most  revolting  drunkenness."  If  Poe 
had  ever  succeeded  in  starting  that  news 
paper,  we  can  easily  imagine,  from  the  in 
solent  personalities  which  some  of  his  mis 
cellanies  now  contain,  how  detestable  would 
have  been  its  "  critical  "  posture.  What  he 
wrote  in  it  regarding  his  contemporaries 
would  probably  have  been  as  foolish  as  his 
poetry,  and  a  great  deal  more  poisonous. 
As  a  weaver  of  wondrous  romances  his  ex 
ceptional  intellect  deserves  all  honor ;  but 
v/hen  he  attitudinizes  as  a  newspaper  critic 
he  almost  teaches  us  to  forget  "  The  Fall  of 
the  House  of  Usher"  and  "The  Cask  of 
Amontillado,"  while  we  remember  vividly 
enough  the  strut  and  nonsense  of  "Ulalume" 
and  the  verbose,  theatrical  prolixity  of 
"The  Raven."  Scientific  criticism  can  make 
plain  enough  just  why  such  poems  as  these 
are  worthless,  and  a  like  test  will  serve,  I 
am  very  certain,  to  demolish  as  equally 
trivial  the  volleys  poured  upon  Longfellow 
and  others. 

If  all  the  misery,  the  despondency,  the 
feeling  of  brutal  wrong  and  the  despairing 


222       Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen? 

apathy  which  has  resulted  from  newspaper 
criticism  could  be  massed  together  in  one 
dolorous  chapter,  such  accumulation  would 
form  a  tragedy  horrible  past  thought.  No 
writer  has  ever  been  young  and  striven 
who  has  not  passed  through  stages  of 
needless  pain  at  comments  which  are  some 
times  bruited  abroad  concerning  his  work 
by  people  who  might  not  wish,  in  the  or 
dinary  following  of  their  lives,  to  injure  a 
fly.  Gifford  may  not  have  really  killed 
Keats,  after  all  :  I  hope  there  never  has 
been  a  Gifford  in  the  world  strong  enough 
to  kill,  or  a  Keats  weak  enough  to  let  him 
self  be  killed.  But  if  the  free  lances  of  the 
press  really  could  see  the  red  and  vital 
blood  which  their  calumnious  thrusts  will 
sometimes  draw  from  young  and  sensitive 
breasts,  I  am  confident  that  they  would 
blush  with  shame  as  red  as  the  blood  itself. 
I  have  thought  a  great  deal  on  the  subject, 
and  I  am  wholly  unable  to  understand  why 
a  young  man  who  publishes  a  trashy  novel, 
or  a  trashy  poem,  or  a  trashy  anything  else, 
should  have  it  fulminated  against  in  the 
newspapers.  It  may  be  as  bad  as  human 
intelligence  can  conceive  of,  and  it  may 
write  its  author  down  an  ass  fifty  times 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?      223 

over.  But  it  is  nearly  always  a  work  of 
perfectly  unconscious  absurdity.  I  have 
always  suspected  that  the  "  Sweet  Singer 
of  Michigan"  was  a  clever  man  or  woman 
who  played  a  deliberate  part-  in  those  ap 
parently  well-intentioned  stanzas  of  his  or 
hers.  But  there  are  many  singers  who  be 
lieve  themselves  to  be  sweet  and  are  not, 
and  who  have  got  into  print,  and  yet  who 
possess  nerve-centres,  capacities  for  trem 
bling  under  fierce  rebuff,  organizations  fit 
to  thrill  with  quite  as  much  emotion  as 
their  verses  are  powerless  to  express.  Why 
rail  against  these  harmless  victims  of  an 
illusive  will-o'-the-wisp?  Why  call  them 
names,  and  stamp  upon  them,  and  question 
Jove  himself  as  to  the  object  of  their  crea 
tion  ?  No  service  to  literature  is  done  by 
giving  them  sleepless  nights  and  days  of 
torment.  Their  feeble  books  are  perfectly 
sure  of  dying,  without  denunciation  being 
hurled  at  them  the  moment  they  are  born. 
Nobody  will  read  them,  in  any  case.  Pray 
do  not  flatter  yourself,  fiery-eyed  critic, 
with  your  furious  foot  still  upon  one  of 
their  gilt-edged  offspring,  that  you  have 
performed  the  slightest  public  benefit  by 
your  frenzy  of  condemnation.  You  have 


224      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ? 

simply  succeeded  in  making  a  fellow-crea 
ture's  heart  suffer — nothing  more.  Your 
rodomontade  was  not  at  all  wanted  ;  so 
ciety  could  have  done  quite  as  well  without 
it.  The  world  at  large  has  the  same  re 
luctance  to  buy  the  book  of  a  new  author 
that  you  or  I  may  have  to  strike  an 
acquaintance  with  some  plausible  person 
who  accosts  us  on  a  steamboat  or  a  railway- 
car.  And  with  the  author  of  fixed  position 
it  is  very  much  the  same.  He  has  won  his 
spurs,  and  you  critics  can  neither  burnish 
them  brighter  nor  cast  upon  them  the  least 
film  of  tarnish.  There  is  more  potency  in 
a  word  or  two,  favorable  or  unfavorable, 

about  my  last  book,  delivered  by  X to 

Z over  their  friendly  dinner,  than  in  all 

the  glory  of  your  panegyric  or  all  the  dark 
ness  of  your  diatribe.  Leave  the  authors 
alone,  and  their  destinies  are  just  as  certain 
as  though  you  did  not  seek  to  manipulate 
them.  A  good  book  was  never  yet  made 
unpopular  because  you  contemned  it,  nor 
a  poor  one  salable  because  you  shouted  in 
its  behalf.  The  community  can  find  out 
what  they  want  to  read  without  your  mul 
tiplex  and  bewildering  counsel.  There  is 
one  thing  that  you  can  do,  and  I  am  im- 


Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen?      225 

pressed  with  an  idea  that  you  do  it  most 
pertinaciously  and  relentlessly  :  you  can 
inflict  torture  upon  the  callow  authors  and 
sharp  annoyance  upon  the  veteran  ones. 
Don't  believe  any  author,  though  his  hair 
be  as  white  as  eighty  years  can  turn  it, 
when  he  tells  you  that  he  doesn't  care  for 
your  stabs  and  pin-pricks.  Of  course  he 
cares.  I  will  warrant  you  he  is  a  pretty 
tepid  and  spineless  kind  of  an  author  if  he 
does  not.  Would  not  you  care,  messieurs, 
if  you  were  trying  to  ford  a  muddy  street, 
and  a  troop  of  vicious  roysterers  passed 
you  in  another  direction,  splashing  the  mud 
farther  than  your  boots — as  far  even  as 
your  eyes  ?  Mud  is  mud,  you  know,  gen 
tlemen,  no  matter  who  throws  it  at  one. 
It  dries  easily,  and  Jane  the  housemaid  or 
John  the  valet  can  quite  nicely  dust  it 
from  one's  trousars  or  waistcoat  the  next 
morning.  But  you  have  a  disagreeable 
after-thought,  nevertheless,  of  how  easy  it 
would  have  been  for  those  riotous  persons 
who  met  you  yesterday  not  to  have  cast 
it. 

I  should  like  for  once  to  see  and  shake 
hands  with  a  newspaper  critic  who  had  no 
conscientious  belief  that  he  was  one  of  the 


226      Should  Critics  be  Gentlemen  f 

guardians  at  the  gates  of  his  nationa) 
literature.  It  would  be  delightful  to  find 
so  welcome  a  product  of  modern  intelli 
gence.  I  should  naturally  object  to  him 
for  being  a  newspaper  critic  at  all,  but  I 
should  control  that  objection  without  diffi 
culty  because  of  gratitude  at  his  charming 
rarity.  If  it  were  in  my  power  to  secure 
him  a  clerkship  in  a  bank,  a  position  in  the 
custom-house,  how  gladly  I  would  offer  to 
do  so  !  And  I  am  certain  he  would  accept 
with  alacrity,  for  he  would  be  so  anxious 
to  leave  the  company  of  his  fellow-critics, 
who  all  had  convinced  themselves  that  they 
held,  each  one,  an  especial  grip  upon  the 
wheel  that  moves  public  appreciation  this 
way  or  that.  Ah,  let  such  autocrats  as 
these  go  to  their  elders,  who  have  passed 
years  in  supposably  moulding  the  fates  of 
authors.  Let  them  ask  such  warriors  in  a 
trifling  war  if  they  honestly  think  they 
have  ever  either  slain  or  saved  an  author. 
I  fancy  that  I  know  what  the  answer  will 
be,  if  it  is  truly  an  honest  one.  And  then 
comes  the  irreversible  question  :  Why  harass 
and  retard  and  irritate  energies  which, 
after  all,  provided  they  be  energies  of  the 
slightest  real  momentum,  must  finally 


SJiould  Critics  be  Gentlemen  ?       227 

brush  away  such  embarrassments  as  if  they 
were  gnats  ?  Learn  your  trade,  gentlemen 
(or  your  art,  if  it  be  an  art),  before  you  at 
tempt  to  practise  it.  Science  points  you 
the  path,  not  whim  or  conceit"  or  vainglory. 
It  is  a  straight  path,  but  a  clear  one.  And 
its  first  foothold,  if  I  mistake  not,  is  hu 
mane  courtesy. 


14  DAY    UMi 

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